A SELF-OBSERVATION OF METABOLIC FUNCTIONING AND EMOTIONAL TONE PATTERNS IN RESPONSE TO NEWS MEDIA CONSUMPTION
Recently, I noticed that while watching the broadcast news media, I was getting reactive to stories being presented. I started thinking about the intersection of differentiation of self and societal anxiety, and how a higher level of differentiation would respond to negativity in the media versus a lower level. I decided to study this phenomenon in myself, so I constructed a research protocol and created a framework for data collection. The study was to focus specifically on the impact of consumption of broadcast news media. Written and other forms of media (i.e.-podcasts, etc.) were considered out of scope, since I already curated those forms of media based on usefulness and tone. One anchoring premise for the study is that from an evolutionary perspective, humans evolved to be tuned into and respond to threats and opportunities in their close knit communities and their regional environment, not be constantly tuned into events and circumstances from all around the globe. As such, my hypothesis is that the nervous system responds to information from around the globe “as if” it is related to one’s regional or immediate environment.
The data would include both information about the news stories I was exposed to, including geographic focus (local, regional, national, international); topic (a range of topics from geopolitics to STEM, entertainment & pop culture, health and wellness, economy, law and order, weather, etc.); Usefulness (useful meant the story would materially impact some decision or action that day); as well as data about my own functioning. The data regarding my functioning included biometrics (resting HR, HR variability, breathing rate, sleep architecture); and quality of life markers, including: rating of joint pain on a scale of 1 (absence of pain) – 10 (pain that prohibited normal or planned activity), a daily global nervous system rating (1-calm to 10-overactivated), and for each story tracked – an emotional valence that ranged from -2 = anxiety provoking, 0 = neutral, +2 = calming.
The study outlined three phases that lasted two weeks each. The first phase was to establish baseline. The control included keeping all routines, including news exposure habits, as stable as possible for the duration of the study. News consumption did not change and exercise habits, nutrition, bedtime, alcohol use and degree of social commitments were all maintained at the same weekly level/intensity throughout the study. I simply collected biometric data and joint pain and global nervous system data for two weeks.
Phase two was an observational phase. During phase two, I continued tracking the biometric, joint pain and nervous system data and added daily observation of the news story categories and an emotional valence rating for each story. Phase two was purely observational, with no attempt to change the impact of any variable on my functioning.
Phase three included two weeks of selective reduction in exposure to categories of news stories rated as “Not Useful”and/or “Anxiety Provoking’. There were stories (very few) that were rated as “Useful” and “Anxiety Provoking.” Selective reduction meant that as I had established a trend that certain types of stories were consistently not useful, I eliminated my exposure to those types of stories. At times I was not clear about the tone and focus of the story and as the story was starting to be presented, but as the story began to unfold, I knew from observation that it was heading toward a not useful rating. I also selectively eliminated my attention to these stories. The integrity of the study protocol was that once the study began, the protocol would not be modified. The goal was clarity of comparison across phases rather than incremental optimization of the study.
What did I observe and conclude?
First, 21% of stories I tracked were rated as Useful. 79% were Not Useful. As phase two progressed, wherein I was now observing my own response to the media in the form of assigning an emotional valence to my response, there was a noteworthy downgrading of the global nervous system activation rating and reduction in the negative emotional tone pattern. Also, during phase two, heart rate variability showed an increase over the two week period,, a positive change. Phase three, with selective reduction in exposure, yielded less change to any biometric or qualitative marker than merely observing my response.
My conclusion at the end of the study was that the observation of my own response had a greater impact on my response than any change in exposure to external stimuli. I interpret this observation to be consistent with my own understanding of Differentiation of Self, as a process first as an intra-brain process, operationalized in relationship to others and one’s environment. The act of self-observation, what I refer to as Meta-Awareness, is a key functional feature of differentiation of self. This study appears to confirm the validity of that theoretical understanding.
–Stan Proffitt