Fake News and Health

Hello, everybody. Welcome to Health Chatter. Today's topic, interesting one. Of course, all our topics are interesting. But this one, fake news. And it's a good follow-up to our last show when we talked about health and politics. So we should see how this one plays out. 
We've got a great, great crew who I love to recognize. Maddie Levine-Wolfe, who's helping us today doing the recording. Erin Collins, Deondra Howard, Matthew Campbell, Sharon and Nygard are all second to none and really, really help to make Health Chatter successful. Clarence Jones and I do these shows together. Great colleague. And Clarence is involved with his community organization, Hueman Health. Partnership, who sponsors Health Chatter, and we greatly appreciate that. You can check them out at huemanpartnership.org, and you can check us, Health Chatter, out at healthchatterpodcast.com for all the different shows, and you can check in on all the research that's done for all of our shows as well. Check us out. Fake news. So it's going to be Clarence and I and Maddie are going to be discussing this topic. Boy, I'll tell you, you know, I don't even know when the concept, Clarence, of fake news hit the scene. I think it, correct me if I'm wrong, I think it came out of the political arena or what. I don't know. But it's really disconcerting. But 
Do you have a sense when it started or when it came about? You know, I think a while ago. Yeah. Well, I think that when the Internet became popular. Yeah. Realize that they could they could submit a. A story without necessarily being identified. You know, that's when a lot of people decide that, you know, they are going to add their opinions to whatever the topic was. And so, yeah, I just think that people now with the use of technology, everybody has an opinion. It doesn't matter. You know, you're going to express your opinion. And there's going to be somebody out there that's going to believe what you believe. You know what I mean? But I think, Sam, when I saw this, when we were going to do this, a couple of things came to my mind. First of all, who really benefits from fake news? Good question. Yeah. 
What is the real impact of fake news upon us as a society? I mean, those are the two things that happened for me. So, you know, who would have benefits from fake news? I mean, you know, if it's not real, what is it? Yeah, and who makes the judgment? It's just kind of overwhelming when you think about it. It's just like when... Certainly when I was growing up, Clarence, you too, it's like when you think about this, it's like news. You think of news as being accurate and factual and truthful. But now it's kind of like this standard deviation away from that where it's then we as the public have to make judgments about accuracy and whether it's truthful or whether it's verifiable. It puts the onus on us where it doesn't seem like that that was the focus of what news was all about, whether it be in newspapers or in the social media world, etc. 
Yeah, you know what? When I was growing up, I remember people like Walter Cronkite. Yeah. And that's the way it was. Yeah, David and Huntley, whoever. Huntley and Brinkley. Huntley and Brinkley, right. And then we jumped up to Jerry Springer. Right. I mean, so it was like this switch where, you know, Jerry Springer was a mayor of a major city. But, you know, he was talking to some stuff and people were like, I couldn't, I didn't really realize how many people went to his audience. I mean, they just, they loved that, whatever that drama was. And I think that for some folks now it is about the drama. But again, the reality is this, is if you're involved with fake news, who really benefits from it? Does it give you a sense of power? 
I think a lot of people are doing it for the fact that at least, again, these are my opinions. I'm not expressing for anybody else. I think people enjoy the fact that they are in the middle of stuff. And that's why we get fake news. Yeah. And, you know, it seems to me that if indeed you don't agree for whatever the topic happens to be, and we'll get into health in a second here. whatever it is, if you don't agree, then it's fake. It automatically is fake. But at any rate, all right. But I think people now are looking for quick answers. I mean, they were talking about the time people will only view an article for like 15 seconds. They want something that's going to be quick and clean. And people have 
Their attention span is so short now that anything that even comes close to what they are thinking, again, this is my general opinion, it's okay. As long as it maintains a certain comfort level for me. But I don't think people like being uncomfortable with things that they don't necessarily agree with. And so it makes it so much easier to just say, well, I don't agree with that. I'm going to... Stay with what I do. I want to say this one story. Yeah. I have met people in my work that know the truth but won't receive it. They haven't done it. Yeah. I know people that had a different life experience than what they're talking about, but they still will go with the fakeness. 
Versus what they really, really know. And that's always befuddled me. Yeah. Like, you know the truth. You know what's real. But yet, you choose to purposefully do something different. I don't know. But anyway, that's my puzzlement for today. Clarence, why do you think that is? You know, I think people want to fit in. And I think that to have an opposing view sometimes makes you seem like an outlier, somebody that's way out there. And sometimes what is true is harder for people to live with than it is to go along with. If that makes sense. Yeah, no, that totally makes sense. You know what I think it is about this fake news stuff? Even if you know it's wrong, I think to a certain extent, it's almost like a form of entertainment. You know, when you get to the point where you say, geez, that's totally counter to what I think. God, this is kind of different. So it's like people kind of gravitate to it because of that. Because it's so different. It's out of the norm. You know what, Stan? I'm going to tell you the truth. 
You said something that really struck me very, very deeply, my friend. Yeah, yeah. Because sometimes I watch the crazy news knowing that it's different than what I really, really believe for entertainment purposes. Yeah. But what's interesting to me really is, first of all, that I would waste my time watching this stupid stuff No, I consider it stupid. Once again, this is talking about my opinion. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's like, I just can't believe people did that. I know. Watching people doing crazy stuff, I'm like, how do they do that? But it is for entertainment purposes. But again, I'm not happy to watch people hurt themselves. I'm not happy watching people being disoriented and those kind of things. But it's like, yeah, there was just so many different things that are going on in my head. And you're right. Some of us, 
Look at that fake news for entertainment purposes. Entertainment and or trying to maybe get a handle on the other side of the equation. It's kind of like, okay, maybe I should just listen to this, whatever it may be, just to see what the hell they're saying here, just so I can make more of a personal judgment on it. But anyway, for our listening audience, here's some interesting stuff. All right, so what's the difference between misinformation and disinformation? All right, so listen up. Misinformation is false or inaccurate information. Disinformation is false information which is deliberately intended to Intentionally misstating the facts. So now I'm going to link us a little bit with health here. I think, you know, and Maddie and Clarence chime in on this. I think we were really deep into fake news during the 
COVID pandemic and I really think you know I'm sure there'll be research on this or information about this coming out but I think it was detrimental and I think it hurt us. I think it really, really hurt us. And it got to the point where the public was saying things like, what am I supposed to believe here? I with you, Sam. I think that one of the, again, this is self-revelation. It really angered me a lot during the COVID period when I realized that for whatever reason, people were not trying to understand or not trying to get the information, but they were just, they were very rigid in their thinking like, well, this is just bad. And they were dying. Yeah, yeah. 
I'm watching people say, well, I'm not going to do this. I'm like, and then they get COVID or they get sick. And then the funny part about it, Stan, was this, was that they were so rigid in their thinking that even getting through the COVID period, knowing that they had it, they still were against their vaccination. I know. It's just like, you know, at what point do you embrace truth? Mm-hmm. As best as you can. At what point do you embrace, as best we can at the time, research and medical science in order for us as the human race to get through as best we possibly can with minimal negative effects? And a lot of that was compromised. It was just... It was just insane. So Manny, I want to pull you in on this one. Do you think that fake news really came to be because of all the social media? Do you think that that's what really drove it? Or what do you think, in your estimation, drove this whole concept of fake news? 
Yeah, I mean, I think there's a lot of factors at play. I think the first thing that comes to mind is just our kind of, like, information overload as a culture. There's so much, there's so much information that we get on a daily basis. There's so many sources of information that we're exposed to on a daily basis there's you know there's cable news there's news over the internet there's news over like social media platforms so there's just like and every source of information has their own like in my mind personal agenda behind what they're putting out there and so I think just naturally the more sources of information you have the the more variety of information there's going to be. And so I think, you know, on the one hand, it's good to have a variety of sources of information. But on the other hand, at what point is it like too many different sources of information? I also think kind of what Clarence was mentioning earlier about people getting 
kind of seeking out the information they want. I feel like there's a lot of confirmation bias going on about how people are consuming information. So a lot of times, especially because we live in such a hyper political society, I feel like folks seek out sources of information that are going to confirm their existing beliefs. And like Clarence said, like people don't want to be uncomfortable with, And they don't want to step outside of their comfort zones in terms of their perspectives. And so a lot of times it's just like, you know, and I'm guilty of this too. Like I watch CNN and more like liberally affiliated sources of news and information because that's more comfortable to me. Like I could watch for me Fox news, which is like a source of a lot of misinformation or another more like conservatively leaning. 
broadcast or news channel but like i'm only doing that for entertainment purposes i'm probably not going to really let myself hear what they're saying because that challenges my own belief so i feel like we're all guilty of it but i think it's just it's a combination of so many different things it's hard to say what you know it's hard to say it's due to this one factor it's You know what I think? Thanks, Maddie, for that. Because I think that you brought up a lot of different points that really struck with me. But one of the things that I always tell people this, I said, the color of America is not black or white. The color of America is green. Okay? And so there are a lot of people out there that are looking for the green. And so the more controversial you can be, the more subscriptions you can get, the more money you make. And it doesn't matter that the information that you're putting out there is either false or 
that it's false or unreal. It's just that I want to be in a space where people recognize that I have this phenomenal, thousands of people looking at me. And sometimes in America, we are impressed with numbers, not necessarily with truth. And so, you know what Maddie was saying was, you know, we, we, we're inundated with, with these things. And we also, we also, I think we also have gotten to the point where we don't use a lot of critical thinking. Yeah. I remember. Yeah. We don't do critical thinking. I remember I was, and I should, that should, again, I'm, I don't know, this must be therapeutical for me, but anyway, I remember, I remember being in school in a wonderful school, St. Thomas. And, um, 
I had to go through this, this was, it wasn't called, it was logic thinking. And I remember how I struggle with that, you know, because it's like, I was so used to just, you know, yeah, like kind of going through and I realized there is a, there is a process that you have to go through in order to come to some real conclusions. And I think in our society today, we're so, we want, we want our answers right away. And if we don't, if it doesn't happen in 10 or 15 seconds, like, we're going to stay stuck. So I think that critical thinking is one of the things that we have lost, which is why fake news can be so powerful in terms of influencing us, is because we don't think beyond the 10 or 15 seconds. And so they know that. And so they load the first 10 or 15 seconds up with all the junk that they can. Again, I'm making generalizations here in order to make us 
believe that they are very knowledgeable and that they are influencers. That's my thought. Yeah. I mean, I think... Sorry, Stan, just to jump in. I think that's really interesting, Clarence. And I think you're totally right that there's a lack of critical thinking right now. And at the same time, it's like, well, if we're presented with news and information in a way that doesn't encourage critical thinking, it's not... you know, it's like, I don't necessarily blame people for not thinking past what they're presented with when like, that's the intention behind how it's presented, you know, like the way we get information doesn't really foster critical thinking. So why, unless you're innately curious, which I hope everyone is, even though we know they're not like, why would you question what you're confronted with when it is presented in a way that's like, this is the truth. Yeah. 
So, you know, underline, and Maddie, you touched on this, underline all this, our personal values. So, for instance, you know, we value certain things, but yet we might look at the other side just to see what's going on. Like, for instance, Maddie, you said you watch, you know, CNN, you know, because you're more on the... on the liberal side, and you adhere more to their thinking. However, when would you watch Fox News, for instance? Well, it wouldn't be to compromise your values. It would just to see how the other ones are coming across. So that's one thing I think we do. But hopefully, I'm hoping that accurate information is the call of the day. And that should never compromise our values for sure. Let's talk a little bit about all these different kinds of methods of getting information. So like Facebook, for instance, outpaces all other social media sites as a news source for Americans. 
Facebook. Facebook. So now, you know, if you were to ask Clarence or I, you know, let's just go back 20 years ago, if we were to ask that same question, first of all, it certainly wouldn't have been Facebook. It would have been, you know, I don't know, New York Times, Washington Post, major, you know, even news broadcasts on major television networks. That would have been the answer. Right. But not today. 30%, you know, this is from our background research here, 30% of U.S. adults saying they regularly get news from Facebook. That's so interesting because I didn't even think that many people still use Facebook. I mean, I do, but, like, I'm weird in my millennial generation. I feel like most of my friends... 
If they have Facebook, they haven't opened it in like months. So that's really surprising. Yeah. And here's some more information. 86% of Americans get their news on their smartphones. Yeah. Okay. So think about, you know, how, how you get the, it's almost like news bites. You don't, you really wonder what percentage of that 86%. digs deep into the actual written discussion about it? Or do they just read these headlines? I was just going to say, Stan, that's the other thing is that I feel like in social media, the way it's presented too is like, it's like, all you need to see is the title of the article and you are, you know, it hardens whatever you believe or... the headline is contrary to what you think. And so you scroll right past it. You know what i mean? Like, it's so, I'm guilty of this too. It's so easy just based on the headline to be like to you know, that's all that you engage. That's the, that's your only engagement with that source of information, you know, it's just from the headline. And that tells you everything you need to know. And that's the click bait that's the you know, the people are saying something really interesting. 
You know, this conversation, I'm going to tell you an old saying that I was told a long time ago. It was this. It says that all of the devil apples have worms in them. OK, no matter how good it looks, you know, there are still people that that will implant a worm inside of that. And I think that people know that people know that if you put if you if you spring a little bit of truth into a conversation or a topic. that people will assume that most of that other part of the conversation is true as well, unless you do critical thinking. And I think that that's, that's, that's what's so, um, that's what's so sad about us. Is that, you know, you see that as a society where we're just, everybody's so, everybody thinks things gonna happen in fact i i was always talking about the fact that, you know, we watch TV. 
And people go from rags to riches in 30 minutes. And that's not life. That's not real. But that's what people, when they enter into something, they think, well, if it doesn't happen within 30 minutes or a year, then it's not going to work. Right. And it's kind of like you wonder whether or not all of this is related to how fast-paced we are without the... the ability to really slow down. You brought up the idea of being critical. I remember actually a course I took for my doctoral work on how to ask the right questions. We would read particular research articles and we were taught how to be critical thinkers. And how to ask, you know, what this means or, you know, dig deeper into subjects. I'm not so sure. You know, I hope, you know, certainly, you know, at the doctoral level that, you know, people still are critical thinkers and learn how to ask the hard questions. So, all right, let's link it back to health a little bit here. 
We, we are seeing the research is starting to, to come out that patients suffer from news related stress. Yeah. yeah Okay. And, you know, I'm sure, you know, I, I can certainly say that, you know, I can, I can relate to that. You know, you get to a certain point where you can't hear, you don't want to listen to it anymore. Okay. It's just like, I can't, I can't, I can't, hear any more about that particular subject. Let me give you a for instance. There are wars that are going on as we speak in Ukraine and in the Middle East and Israel. You keep hearing about it and there's only so much that you can listen to or get involved with before you get stressed out yourself. And stress, 
is a major health issue. So we have to balance. We have to learn how to balance the information that we get at the individual level, for sure. You know what, Samuel? Let me say this real quick, though. You may not want to hear it, but there's going to be somebody in your life that's going to keep bringing it up. Well, that's true. So the other part for me is this, is that you have to be willing to let some people go. I mean, because there's some people that they're stuck there. They're going to continuously bring that drama to your conversation and into your life. And so you have to decide, like, you know, I don't want this anymore. And that's a personal decision. I mean, you know, there's some people that should be in your life, some people that shouldn't be in your life. But there are, you know, when it comes to this, these topics, there are some people that are so fixated on them that no matter whatever you talk to them about, they don't bring that topic right back to the right back to that. 
You know what I mean? I mean, you know, it could be, we're going to talk about poverty. We're going to be talking about, you know, the presidential race. No matter what you say to them, they're going to bring that stuff back. And as you just said, we get overloaded with that stuff. And you have to make a decision like, you know, I'd let that person go. That's my opinion. You're hearing off. If you can, if you can. I mean, sometimes you can't. Sometimes they're your boss. So you can't, you know, you can do about that. But for the most part, like, you know, you have to think about your own mental health in this process, which, you know, again, that's a health portion about it. Because we know that this fake news is affecting us mentally, spiritually, physically, everything. I mean, so we just have to, we just have to, I think sometimes we just have to take a step back and take a look at how is this personally affecting us and how much can we take. 
Correct. And I think that there's a level of engagement at the personal level and at the community level that I think we have to also keep in balance. Oh, yeah. Again, for our listening audience, this is really interesting. Obviously, we were getting ready for this show, and in today's Star Tribune, Minneapolis Star Tribune, the editorial in today's paper, August 2nd, 2024, a bright spot amid vax, vaccination disinformation. So listen to this. A new study from George Washington University yielded surprising yet hopeful findings in an area in which disinformation, which we talked about a little bit ago, has undermined the public's confidence in vaccines, researchers documented good news about one important immunization, the hepatitis B vaccine for newborns. The parental refusal rate previously recorded in a study at 12.1% in 2017 plummeted, ready? 
to 3.5% in 2022, meaning more parents are taking the responsible step in getting their children vaccinated. This development is an encouraging one. So in other words, all right, you know, at some point, you know, we might have been involved, certainly during COVID, vaccination overload, and it might have had it might have had an effect on other vaccinations that we need to get. It's like, oh, my God, you know, I can only get poked in my arm so many times, okay? Or my kid can only get poked in the arm so many times. But that doesn't mean that there wasn't accurate information out there. So in this case, the disinformation was – basically put aside and we're seeing positive impacts of the information and people acting appropriately. Yeah, yeah. See, I think that's fantastic. I want to go back to something else because you were talking about health. We need to kind of talk about what is this, what other kind of health issues are generated by this fake news. 
by this massive increase in disinformation or misinformation, whatever. But there has been increased use of substance abuse, alcohol use, and anxieties, mental health issues as a result of some of this work. And then I think a lot of times in this work, there's increasing loneliness. I mean, how are you going to be lonely with all of this stuff that's going on? How are you going to be lonely? But sometimes you just want to just cut everything off. You know, you hear so much stuff. You just want to, I don't want to be bothered. I mean, you know, you want to go home and just go to bed. You know, you got to work. Go home after that. Like, man, I can go home and go to sleep. I don't want to do that. But then the other thing, too, I think that is being reported is that there's an increase in anger. 
and anxiety that's being generated by all this stuff. I mean, sometimes when you bring up a particular topic, people just kind of explode on you. Like, whoa, whoa, you know, I'm a nice guy. I'm just trying to talk to you in a nice tone. But you mentioned certain words, it's just like a trigger. Then they go ranting and raving, like, whoa, whoa, you know. But anyway, so those are the kinds of things that I think that are being generated in terms of emotional anxiety factors that are being generated by the by the increased exposure to this to this topic you know i i agree um you know what struck me is like information. Where do people go that health information? So, for instance, if if you're diagnosed with a a particular disease that you know nothing about, 
And all of a sudden, you're thrust into you need to know. And so it's like, where do you go for trusted information? Not misinformation, but trusted information. And like, for instance, if you go to the Centers for Disease Control to look up something, was the center or has been the Center for Disease Control disease control, has their information been compromised? The trust been compromised because of some things that have come out in fake news or information overload that people don't trust at any given time. And so now what happens? Where do people go to get information? information that they need on health issues that they believe that they can embrace and trust going forward. I think that that could be problematic going forward. Yeah. You know, I think you're right. I think one of the things as we continue to talk, you know, you mentioned the CDC. And I think about there are actually websites that try to duplicate the CDC in terms of how they appear. 
and it's a scam or it's a hoax or some false news. I mean, you know, so people are getting pretty, pretty sophisticated in terms of hiding fake news, you know, through some quote unquote legitimate, through a legitimate source. And so you have to, you have to look at sites, even when it comes like from the CDC to see like, you know, is this too good to be true? You know, is it, is it something that, you know, I need to research at a different place. And you need to, you know, if you can, you need to find different sources to just kind of check and recheck what you're doing. And a lot of times people say, well, I don't have the time to do that. But you don't also have the time to be messed up either. Correct. So, Maddie, I've got a question for you. You know, obviously, Clarence and I, we grew up in a... 
in a generation where we had newspapers, I mean, that were really sources of information, even though they have them today, but people aren't relying on them as much, news broadcasts, et cetera. What do you, Maddie, what do you embrace as far as, I guess, trusted news? And how is it that you process it? Yeah, that's an interesting question. I... I... So one of the other things is that I don't... Like, I don't have cable in my apartment, and so I'm not... You know, I feel like when I'm at home with my parents, they, you know, oftentimes will have, like, the nightly news on, the morning news on, just kind of, like, playing. I don't have that because I don't have cable, so I do... 
Going back to the statistic that you mentioned earlier, I do get like 90% of my information from my phone, whether it's like Facebook news or Apple news. My friends and my family members are also oftentimes like sharing articles with each other. But I think the conversation around like, how much to engage, like engaging with it is really interesting. I remember I used to listen to a New York Times podcast every morning for like a year. And it was basically just 30 minutes every day of just like the highlights of what, you know, went on the day before or what's just like going on in the world. And I remember after a couple months, I was like, I have to stop listening to this. Like it's actually getting to the point where it's like so much of our news is just like depressing. 
And it was just like starting off my day and kind of just like a dark way. And so I was like, I need to stop engaging with this. And it's hard because I want to be informed and I want to be engaged. But when a lot of the news is just like heavy and dark and difficult, it makes you want to do the opposite. So, you know, it takes a lot of effort and an active effort to engage with, I feel like any source of news, whether that's like watching the news on like cable TV, whether that's like reading, scrolling through articles on your phone, like so much of the news is just heavy and it makes it really difficult to want to stay informed. Even if I'm seeking out sources of information that are within my comfort zone, it's still difficult. And then you add on the extra effort that it sometimes takes. 
To like you were saying earlier, Clarence, to potentially engage with a source of news that pushes you outside of your comfort zone. So just takes a lot of effort. So I, you know, in a sense, I don't blame people for being like, you know what, then therefore I'm just not going to engage with news or information at all. But that's also problematic. So it's, you know, it's difficult. And I feel like that's constantly on my mind of like, there's a balance between, engaging an appropriate amount where it doesn't stress me out. And then the threshold of like pushing past that of being like, now i'm stressed out and anxious and sad and demoralized and all those things. So it's a, it's like a, it's a daily struggle for sure, which is taxing. And, and finding the balance, you know, it's like, we have enough to do just i 
Personally, our own balance, but then all of a sudden you're barraged with all this information disinformation misinformation and that's yeah and that's also not even, like, that's on the front end, right? And so then you have to deal with on the back end of, like, processing all of that on your own, right? And that is also takes a lot of time and effort. And so, you know again like I I don't blame people who are like, I don't have time for all that, right? Like I have to work and like put food on the table and pay my bills. Like I don't have time to engage with this like crazy culture of information. So again, which I don't think is right because, you know, we live in a democracy. Well, some people would say we don't, but we do. And, you know, it's important that people understand 
are informed in order to vote in certain ways. So I don't think it's the right path to say like, well, this is too stressful. I'm not going to engage. But I I get that in a lot of ways. It is it is hard. So you bring up an interesting point about processing. You know, again, if I reflect on, you know, when when we received news 20 years ago, we didn't have to process. We really didn't have to. In our mind, we didn't have to whether this is good, bad, indifferent, or whatever. It was news. You would listen. You would just listen and take it in. Now you have to listen and process it, good, bad, or indifferent, going forward. Do you think that's an accurate statement, Clarence? You know what? What you just said was very interesting to me. Yeah. What you said was there was an assumption that what we was hearing was truth. 
You know, we didn't have to process it. Okay, Walter Cronkite said so. And that's the way it was. Yeah, yeah. Right, right. Well, Clarence, you froze. You there, Clarence? You froze. You froze. Very, very important. Did you hear me? My internet went out for a while. Yeah, Clarence. Start that thread over. OK. Stan, I really like what you were saying, because there was an assumption that what we were hearing back there was true, too. So people could, if they were smart, they could also influence us by what was being said and what wasn't being said. We also know that after many years have gone by that some of the things that we were told was not necessarily true. I agree with that. It isn't as crazy as it is today. But no, no, no. I agree with you. But I'm just saying, though, I think that news, we didn't call it fake news because you asked that question a little earlier. When did we start calling it fake news? Well, we didn't call it that. 
we didn't call it that back But the reality is that we do know now that some of the things that we were told were not okay. You know, some of that stuff. So I think it gets back to that point of being a critical thinker. That regardless of whatever it was, I mean, there was a time where we assumed a lot of stuff. We can't assume anymore. I also wonder, like, when you were growing up, were... was everything as highly politicized as it is now because I also think there's an element of like everything all the information were presented with like it's all feeding someone's political agenda which makes it really difficult because people like the the idea of truth is even questioned, right? There's actual scientific evidence and data that some people think is fake, right? And so it's like every piece of information is put out there to, again, feed a political agenda, which makes it really, really difficult to know what the truth is because it's not just presented as the sheer truth. It's presented within... 
political agenda, which is just so complicated and I wonder if it's like, was that different, you know, 30 years ago or whatever it was, 40 years ago? You know, I think there were agendas, but I don't think, I don't know, Clarence, what do you think? I don't think there was as intense as they are today. I don't think they were as overt. Overt, yeah. As Betty was talking, I think about this whole thing about what was the American dream? But I understood that the American dream as such, the real American dream was only for a very, very short period of time. But we kept repeating that. Well, we're looking for the American dream. We want the picket fence. We want the family, those kinds of things. There was an agenda for families. You know what I mean? So 
So there's a lot of things that we have to rethink. And I just think that this one, this particular topic is a very interesting topic and it would be great to have a, let's have more of these topics with other people to bring it up. Hey, let's just talk about fake news. How does it affect us? And then what can we do? Because that's part of, part of the other thing that we have to think about is that what do we do in order to address some of this stuff? You know, how do you, How do you address it? And that's the whole thing. We don't want to leave people just depressed. But... You know, I think we're also attracted. I think we're attracted to negative news. Yeah, that's true. You know, I mean, you know, if it's positive, okay, fine and dandy. But negative, whoa, what? You know, it's kind of like... 
it kind of really hits us more. And I think the news companies know that. You know, I think, Stan, I like what you said because I think we sometimes like to see people worse off than us. Right. I mean, it's really a human thing. Oh, I'm not as bad as these people are. I mean, you can be one of the same thing, but I'm bad, but I'm not as bad as that one. You know what I mean? So I think that part of it really is... people have found a way to motivate us to do some of the things that they want us to do. And we just have to be mindful of, you know, as we talked before about our own personal values and not allow others to infringe upon those personal values. Yeah. And, you know, hopefully live and have a healthier and better world. So I'm finished, man. Yeah. Well, I'll tell you, fake news is... 
Unfortunately, I don't think is going away. I think the title fake news is kind of almost like a tagline that certainly in the political realm has been embraced. But I think it's going to be around. So I think going forward for all of us, we have to discern truth and make healthy judgments. based on the information that's given to us i agree so uh last last thoughts maddie yeah i think that's right i think it's about finding your own balance of you know engaging until a point where it's too much i think yeah i think it's i think it's really hard and i kind of don't know what the solution is assuming that this kind of this culture of our news cycle isn't going anywhere. But, you know, resources, support systems, taking a break. Yeah. Just kind of assessing what feels good to you, but stay engaged. I think that's important in whatever way. I don't think it's, I don't think it's right to just not engage at all. So finding that balance, like you said, I think chatting is good. 
I really do about this. I mean, this is, you know, you can talk about it with your neighbors, your friends, whatever. And so that, you know, together you can come up with it, you know, a comfort level too. So you don't feel like you're doing this by yourself. Anyway, interesting, interesting subject. We have a great next show coming up and that's going to be on toxic relationships. So stay tuned. for that as well we hope you enjoyed this show and to everybody keep health chatting away!