Notes

This book gives general information. It isn't medical or psychological advice, and it's no substitute for a professional who knows your situation. NHS guidance is quoted as I found it in September 2026 and applies to England.

I've kept sources out of the chapters where I could so they read easily. Here they are by chapter, with the limits I'm aware of. Unless I say otherwise, I read the published summary of each paper and not the full text. I checked each paper for a retraction or correction notice in September 2026 and found none on the papers cited. Where a chapter isn't listed, it rests on my own reasoning. That includes chapters 1, 9, 11, 13, 14, 16 and 17. You, Jo, Neil and every other example are invented for illustration.

Before you start. The advice on generalised anxiety disorder and on self-referral to talking therapies is from the NHS page "Generalised anxiety disorder". The Samaritans' number is 116 123.

Chapter 2. Soroka, Fournier and Nir, "Cross-national evidence of a negativity bias in psychophysiological reactions to news", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 116, 2019, pages 18888 to 18892. That the measures were skin conductance and heart rate is from my memory of the paper. Robertson, Pröllochs, Schwarzenegger, Pärnamets, Van Bavel and Feuerriegel, "Negativity drives online news consumption", Nature Human Behaviour 7, 2023, pages 812 to 822. The website was one that specialised in shareable, mostly upbeat stories, so its readers may not be typical of news readers. The evolutionary account of why minds attend to threat is a common one and is speculation. The book on phones is "The phone can wait".

Chapter 3. Gil de Zúñiga, Weeks and Ardèvol-Abreu, "Effects of the news-finds-me perception in communication: social media use implications for news seeking and learning about politics", Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 22, 2017, pages 105 to 123. That early reports of events are often wrong is a commonplace among journalists, and I haven't sourced it to a study. The Friday test is mine.

Chapter 4. Office for National Statistics, "Public perceptions of crime in England and Wales: year ending March 2016". The quotation that perceptions of crime at a national level don't typically match well to reality is from that report, as is the finding on local areas. I haven't checked more recent editions. The list of leading causes of death and injury is general knowledge from national statistics and isn't tied to a particular table. The Crime Survey's sample size is from memory.

Chapter 5. Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford, Digital News Report 2026, executive summary. The figure is an average across the markets surveyed. The idea that checking produces a feeling of participation that can stand in for action is mine.

Chapter 6. Johnston and Davey, "The psychological impact of negative TV news bulletins: the catastrophizing of personal worries", British Journal of Psychology 88, 1997, pages 85 to 91. The summary doesn't give the number of participants. Buchanan, Aknin, Lotun and Sandstrom, "Brief exposure to social media during the COVID-19 pandemic: doom-scrolling has negative emotional consequences, but kindness-scrolling does not", PLoS One 16, 2021, article e0257728. That small effects add up across a day is my inference. Neither study tested it.

Chapter 7. Rathje, Van Bavel and van der Linden, "Out-group animosity drives engagement on social media", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 118, 2021, article e2024292118. Brady, Wills, Jost, Tucker and Van Bavel, "Emotion shapes the diffusion of moralized content in social networks", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 114, 2017, pages 7313 to 7318. The example words are mine. Both studies are of American politics. That this distorts people's view of their opponents is my inference from them, though other research I haven't cited here has found that partisans overestimate how extreme the other side is.

Chapter 8. Holman, Garfin and Silver, "Media's role in broadcasting acute stress following the Boston Marathon bombings", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111, 2014, pages 93 to 98. My description of what counted as direct exposure is from memory of the paper. Thompson, Jones, Holman and Silver, "Media exposure to mass violence events can fuel a cycle of distress", Science Advances 5, 2019, article eaav3502. World Health Organization, "Mental health and psychosocial considerations during the COVID-19 outbreak", 18 March 2020. I read the document itself. The observation about replayed footage is mine.

Chapter 10. Gil de Zúñiga and colleagues as above. That very large events reach people quickly by word of mouth is my observation.

Chapter 12. McLaughlin, Gotlieb and Mills, "Caught in a dangerous world: problematic news consumption and its relationship to mental and physical ill-being", Health Communication 38, 2023, pages 2687 to 2697. George Gerbner's idea is usually called mean world syndrome, and I've given it from memory. The falls in child mortality and extreme poverty are reported by the United Nations and the World Bank. I've stated them from general knowledge and haven't checked the latest figures, and progress on poverty has slowed in recent years.

Chapter 15. Gollwitzer and Sheeran, "Implementation intentions and goal achievement: a meta-analysis of effects and processes", Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 38, 2006, pages 69 to 119. The rule and its parts haven't been tested together, and what I say to expect is my expectation and not a finding.