The 2024 best­seller by Amer­i­can social psy­chol­o­gist Jonathan Haidt is apt­ly titled The Anx­ious Gen­er­a­tion. In this riv­et­ing book, Haidt offers a sober­ing cri­tique of a gen­er­a­tion over­whelmed by smart­phones and social media, result­ing in a men­tal health epi­dem­ic. While social media and smart­phones rapid­ly take over lives, even here in Kenya, I would add one more ele­ment to this list of anx­i­ety: the evening news. Each evening, in homes across our coun­try, news bul­letins unleash end­less streams of neg­a­tiv­i­ty- mur­ders, trag­ic acci­dents, and polit­i­cal bat­tles drenched in vit­ri­ol. This diet of despair leaves us anx­ious, fear­ful, and increas­ing­ly hope­less. In fact, sev­er­al stud­ies have demon­strat­ed a grow­ing phe­nom­e­non of news avoid­ance for pre­cise­ly this reason.

A 2022 sur­vey in the Unit­ed States pow­er­ful­ly con­firmed the link between neg­a­tive news and anx­i­ety. In the study con­duct­ed by the Amer­i­can Psy­cho­log­i­cal Asso­ci­a­tion, 73% of adults report­ed that the news was a sig­nif­i­cant source of stress in their lives. In Kenya, this fig­ure could be even high­er. We are sub­tly yet pow­er­ful­ly con­di­tion­ing our­selves and the next gen­er­a­tion towards anx­i­ety, dis­tort­ed val­ues, weak­ened com­mu­ni­ty bonds, and a loss of pur­pose. The real­i­ty is stark: our col­lec­tive men­tal health is declin­ing, com­mu­ni­ty trust is erod­ing, and gen­uine hope is fad­ing. How­ev­er, there is good news — we still have the pow­er to rewrite this story.

First, our media own­ers must rec­og­nize their immense influ­ence on our nation’s psy­che. Behav­ioral sci­ence has shown that repeat­ed expo­sure to neg­a­tiv­i­ty sig­nif­i­cant­ly affects men­tal health, trig­ger­ing anx­i­ety and despair. Yet, this same pow­er can uplift, inspire, and trans­form. Imag­ine a prime-time seg­ment called “Kenya’s Moment,” ded­i­cat­ed exclu­sive­ly to devel­op­men­tal and inspir­ing sto­ries. This seg­ment would spark opti­mism and fos­ter nation­al pride by high­light­ing inno­va­tions, suc­cess­es, and heroes with­in our com­mu­ni­ties. Con­sid­er our nation­al sports infra­struc­ture — our ath­letes face the embar­rass­ment of trav­el­ing to neigh­bor­ing coun­tries for qual­i­fied train­ing facil­i­ties because ours are under ren­o­va­tion. If we focused media atten­tion con­struc­tive­ly, we could ral­ly col­lec­tive sup­port, cor­po­rate spon­sor­ships, and gov­ern­men­tal action to rebuild our sta­di­ums and reignite our nation­al sport­ing spir­it once again.

Sec­ond, pol­i­cy­mak­ers must intro­duce tar­get­ed tax incen­tives to ensure that media hous­es sus­tain­ably embrace pos­i­tive report­ing. Imple­ment­ing a clear and trans­par­ent “Pos­i­tive News Cred­it” would pro­vide tax rebates to media hous­es ded­i­cat­ing air­time to con­struc­tive sto­ries and to adver­tis­ers spon­sor­ing such seg­ments. This inno­v­a­tive mod­el aligns prof­it motives with social good, encour­ag­ing a respon­si­ble media land­scape. Under this arrange­ment, if a media house con­sis­tent­ly ded­i­cates air­time to pos­i­tive nar­ra­tives, it would qual­i­fy for direct tax cred­its. Sim­i­lar­ly, busi­ness­es spon­sor­ing these seg­ments would receive sig­nif­i­cant tax deduc­tions, enhanc­ing their cor­po­rate social respon­si­bil­i­ty image and fos­ter­ing com­mu­ni­ty development.

Third­ly, we must extend these incen­tives beyond media alone. Pro­vid­ing sub­stan­tial tax rebates to cor­po­ra­tions that invest direct­ly in pub­lic infra­struc­ture- such as inter­na­tion­al-stan­dard sta­di­ums, parks, and com­mu­ni­ty cen­ters- will swift­ly trans­form our phys­i­cal and social land­scape. Part­ner­ships between the gov­ern­ment and the pri­vate sec­tor have proven glob­al­ly effec­tive, dri­ven eco­nom­ic growth, and fos­tered strong com­mu­ni­ty engagement.

More­over, incor­po­rat­ing behav­ioral sci­ence edu­ca­tion into media train­ing can trans­form jour­nal­ism itself. Teach­ing edi­tors and jour­nal­ists about the psy­cho­log­i­cal impacts of their report­ing will nat­u­ral­ly steer con­tent towards bal­anced nar­ra­tives, fos­ter­ing men­tal well-being and soci­etal optimism.

Imple­ment­ing these trans­for­ma­tive steps demands col­lec­tive respon­si­bil­i­ty and bold vision from pol­i­cy­mak­ers, media own­ers, adver­tis­ers, and every cit­i­zen. It also requires us to agree to pur­sue dif­fer­ent approach­es, even if they chal­lenge our long-held beliefs about the role of media in soci­ety. Pilot pro­grams involv­ing major media hous­es and cor­po­rate spon­sors could quick­ly demon­strate their via­bil­i­ty, effec­tive­ness, and broad soci­etal ben­e­fits. This could pave the way for devel­op­ing nation­al poli­cies to sup­port the shift.

Indeed, words shape our world, and the sto­ries we tell today define our tomor­row. As a nation, we pos­sess the extra­or­di­nary pow­er to tran­si­tion from despair to hope and from anx­i­ety to opti­mism. As Oba­ma said, “We are the change we have been wait­ing for.” Think green; act green!