We’ve got a lot of decisions ahead of us. Help the older people in your life make good ones.
These resources might help with the conversation 🙂
- If the person you’re talking to likes history or wants to know the origin of fake news check this New York Times video.
- If the person you’re talking to likes a comedic approach (or Ali G) or is into tech, watch this funny and beautiful speech.
- If the person you’re talking to actually does want a suggestion for a relatively unbiased, international news source, BBC is a good one.
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If the person you’re talking to wants to read one of the best books on the subject of news, check this out.
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If the person you’re talking to watches Fox, show them this documentary on Fox News and how it functions.
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If the person you’re talking to likes psychology, here’s a great Psychology Today article on fear-based manipulation
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If the person you’re talking to needs some cheering up, here’s some happy news 🙂
* Special thanks to O.R. for your help with those.
In case you’d prefer to read what I say in the video, here’s a bullet-point readout of the subtitles:
- Something that’s important to me is how to make sure that our older people are taken care of, and part of that means making sure that they have truthful news inputs so that they can be mentally resilient in the face of misinformation.
- Unfortunately, there’s a lot of misinformation flying around right now. Whether it’s Network TV or Facebook posts, there’s a lot of news that is very intentionally produced to pray on people’s fears, cloud their decision making and turn them against each other.
- Even more unfortunately the elderly are the most common targets of this type of media.
- Fear is the enemy of truth, and it’s impossible to make a good decision when your vision is clouded by the static and noise that fear and manipulative information creates.
- I’ve noticed increasing rates of anxiety in my patients over the last few years, and I’ve also noticed that the elderly particularly are feeling more marginalized and unsafe than ever.
- So I want to suggest that you have a conversation with the older people in your life – your grandparents, your parents, your aunts, uncles, mentors or whomever, about their news sources. How many do they have? Do they get their news from only one source or multiple sources? Do they get it from print, TV or social media?
- I’m not suggesting that you try to sway them to your favorite news sources or that you really take any stance at all. Just be ready to listen and initiate an open dialogue.
- They might give you an answer that pisses you off, and that’s okay. We’ve all been there.
- Your job in this chat is just to start the conversation and encourage them to diversify their news sources, and use even one or two more than they’re using now.
- And make them feel safe – remind them how safe and loved they are. Because that’s what they did for us. They protected our little bodies while we grew and reminded us that we were safe so we could go into the world and form our own opinions.
- And listen, it’s never a bad time to call your favorite old person. My grandma always appreciates a call from me.
If you like this idea maybe decide that you’re going to do this for one person in your life this week. I’ll post some resources below that can help with the conversation, and if you want to share this video with somebody who doesn’t use social media it will also be available on my website (which is very much in beta) – zandrapalma.com
