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This is an excerpt from The Breakdown newspaper. To read the full article, register.
“Despite what we hear on the news … the big story of our time is that we are witnessing the greatest change in global lifestyle that has ever taken place.”
– John Norberg
As the years go by, 2025 was pretty good, I think.
Derek Thompson goes all the way to say it was “a special year for America,” citing, among other things, significant declines in traffic deaths, drug addiction and suicide, significant declines in the homicide rate, and significant improvements in health care.
“This appears to be the first time on record that every major cause of premature death — alcohol abuse, car accidents, homicide, obesity — has fallen at the same time,” he said. he adds.
Noah Smith likewise list 10 reasons why America may be “regrouping,” including rising life expectancy, increased use of social media, and increased entrepreneurship.
Reading a lot, Human Progress collages 1,084 great stories reported this year: everything from a remarkable decline of poverty in India for the return of the puffins in the UK.
If I wasn’t a regular reader of Human Progress This website, I don’t know if I know any of them, because the gospel doesn’t make headlines.
This has been happening – as the old saying goes, “If it leads, it bleeds.”
But it is very true now. In the fierce competition for our scarce attention, the media seems to be increasingly relying on the traditional method of scaring us with bad news.
In 2022, a higher education found “a trend of increasing negative sentiment in the headlines.” In particular, headlines in 2019 were found to have 314% more expressions of anger, disgust, fear or sadness compared to 2000.
It sounds like things have only gotten worse since then.
“We are facing a problem of inconsistency,” said Marain Tupy he warns“Influenced by the increasingly competitive nature of radio, newspapers, television stations, radio stations and websites, they present a very distorted picture of the state of the world.”
The state of the world was not perfect in 2025, of course. The war continued to grow, the climate continued to heat up, governments continued to be in debt, immigrants everywhere continued to be persecuted.
But the world is almost better than we think.
Think about it Gallup poll which found that 81% of Americans are satisfied with the way things are going in their lives – and only 20% are satisfied with the way things are going in the country.
“A country can’t do well if most of its citizens have a good time,” Malcolm Cochran. they see.
Or think again about the “crisis problem” that is making headlines now. After reviewing the evidence, The Economist he finishes that “life has never been so cheap in America for so many.”
Excellent news! But I suspect it won’t click much.
So here’s my New Year’s resolution: Give more of your clicks to good news reports.
Let’s look at the charts.
All bad news to be published:
Here are some pictures from learning getting “a habit of increasing negative thoughts on the heads.” Whatever the situation in the world is, it is not 314% worse than it was in 2000.
I am ok, but we are not:
The aforementioned Gallup poll: 81% of Americans say they are satisfied with their lives but only 20% say they are satisfied with America.
Children are not well:
According to work and parenting, and FT reports that young people are growing more and more insecure. I think this rise is caused in part by the rise of wrongful heads.
Don’t make headlines:
For all the pressure on the “hardship” issue, wages grew faster than rates in the past decade, at least. In other words, things have become cheaper, not less. (Yes, this depends on the house.)
Emotional conflict:
Starting with the epidemic, consumer sentiment (green) was removed from the lost income (blue) and never recovered. More than ever, people are more skeptical than the data suggests.
Other things that didn’t heal:
JPMorgan they have found that things like restaurants and airlines have fully recovered from the epidemic, but the film industry and public transportation have not.
A change of pace?
The Economist reports that “the world has been surprisingly uncomplaining.” Anxiety, depression and anger go away, while the sense of humor returns.
Generation alpha is here:
More than 20% of Americans now play Roblox every day. I don’t know what that means to Americans, but I’m sure it does something.
Changing world:
There are now more children born annually in Nigeria than in the whole of Europe; more in Ethiopia than in the US; and more in Afghanistan than Japan.
In 2026, there will probably be more optimists than pessimists, too.
I doubt that would be the case, though.
Have a great year, chapter readers.
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