Google believes that everyone nowadays is getting news which are depressing and that the abundance of bad news may not be good for them. In a blog post, Google termed it “negative news fatigue”. Considering this, Google has now programmed Google Assistant to provide people with some good news. The new feature is called “Tell Me Something Good”. Users of the digital assistant can now say, “Hey Google, tell me something good,” and the software will give that user what it considers to be good news.
The news will come from a widespread subject and it will be collected by the Solutions Journalism Network which is dedicated to spreading the practice of solutions journalism which highlights how problems are solvable.
This is good news like how Georgia State University coupled empathy with data to double its graduation rate and eliminate achievement gaps between white and black students, how backyard beekeepers in East Detroit are bringing back the dwindling bee population while boosting the local economy. – Google’s blog
However, Google is neither the only nor the first organization to take this initiative of providing people with good news. Newspapers, magazines, and local TV stations have tried to attract more readers and viewers by including more entertainment, culture, sports and local features. One of the main complaints from people is that they want more good, cheerful news.
Not all of the initiatives were a success. More often than not, they were met with mixed results. BBC published a result in 2014 where they stated that researchers found evidence that humans have a natural attraction to negative news. The BBC report read, “It isn’t just schadenfreude, the theory goes” and added, “we’ve evolved to react quickly to potential threats. Bad news could be a signal that we need to change what we’re doing to avoid danger.”