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We now have access to more information than at any other time in history.

Many people with anxiety personalize events in the news or on social media of something bad happening.

People with anxiety have an increased threat bias, so that makes them more vulnerable to this.

You can learn to give yourself a reality check when you engage in this behavior.

We now have unprecedented access to so much information. Thanks to social media, digital news platforms, and various safety phone apps, we find out that a high school classmate lost his battle with cancer, but that Princess Catherine won hers. We learn that there was a car break-in five miles away, and that a prisoner in another state on death row was found innocent after 20 years and was set free. We can learn this information all within a matter of minutes.

Aside from the burden of information overload that so many of us feel, there’s another problem, especially for those who are prone to anxiety. That is, when we hear about events in the news or events that happen to people we know, there is a tendency to overestimate the prevalence of bad things. In fact, violent crime in the US has decreased significantly since 1990, although it might not feel that way because we have access to so much more information.

For an anxious person hearing about something bad, there is also a tendency to overestimate the possibility of something bad happening to themselves. Their thought process goes something like this:

"Because this horrible thing happened to [insert name of friend, celebrity, acquaintance, or acquaintance of acquaintance], then I........

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