Your Two Cents: Are You Desensitized to Economic News?

February 20, 2009

A constant stream of bad news can get us down, and it can also make us desensitized to more depressing updates. According to a government report released yesterday, the number of Americans who applied for first-time unemployment benefits is the highest since the Labor Department started keeping records in 1967. It's obviously meaningful news, but it's also more of the same. How are you processing economic news lately?

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9 Comments

wmoonw 4 years 12 weeks

I am desensitized to spending hundreds of billions of dollars at this point . . . even though I couldn't fathom it in the beginning. I'm in a sort of "Well, it won't do anything, but I can't stop you, so . . . whatever" mentality.

Carrie Sue 4 years 12 weeks

I've always tried to look for good news in the midst of all the bad, so that hasn't really changed -- it's just harder to find the good news these days! Not impossible, though! :)

Dhorwich 4 years 12 weeks

I work for an asset management company so the economic news is my business even though I'm in our Communications Department, not on a trading desk. It is important for me to know what's going on to know what's coming in my office and also what to expect in my personal world. I know a lot of people who are closing their eyes to what's going on and getting blindsided later by troubles they could have worked to avoid. I'd rather know and be prepared than ever get desensitized, personally.

utrach 4 years 12 weeks

We're not desensitized, but my friends and I are trying to put a positive spin on the situation. We've started a website where we kind of make fun of the economy — It's quite therapeutic!

aimeeb 4 years 12 weeks

I'm most def paying MORE attention but trying not to let the bad news get me too down.

GlowingMoon 4 years 12 weeks

No, I'm paying close attention.

WeTheLiving 4 years 12 weeks

I voted for the second one. I'm not exactly desensitized, but I recognize that bad news is good news for all those news outlets out there. They always overexaggerate everything and right now it's the economy because it's what everyone's worried about. Before, it was terrorists or murderers. I'm not saying the economy is not bad, but they focus on it so much on it, that they make it seem even worse. And it is really depressing, and I'm trying to stay positive. The economy has always had ups and downs, and it's always gone back up. I got one of those emails the other day about some guy who has always predicted horrible economic things and apparently he was talking about how America will undergo a revolution in the next few years and things will be worse than even in the depression and so on. Even if I believed that, I'm not going to forward things like that and get people all worked up even more over the economy. Causing panic can only make things worse and I don't believe in speaking bad things over people which is all that is. If you pay too much attention to all the bad, you'll just go crazy.

margokhal 4 years 12 weeks

Things are tough. I think most people get that. That's why I'm pretty desensitized to economic news. But, as I've had to be out and about, enough people are still shopping, eating out and the like to where you'd be like "what recession?" Some people still have money - that's just how it is. Eventually things will get better, so I don't worry about it too much. Just watching for when things start to pick up a bit so I can invest and get some money back!

ilanac13 4 years 12 weeks

it's not that i'm desensitized to the information, it's just that you can only deal with it soo many times. i feel like every day the stock market drops, the foreclosure rate increases, unemployment rises...and well it's not getting any better. it's just too much to dwell on i think.

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