I believe that our media are actively stoking outrage and shock. People have a built-in tendency to pay more attention to danger than opportunity: if you fail to notice some berries on a bush you won’t necessarily die but if you fail to notice a scorpion on the path you may very well die. So people react strongly to negative information. This string reaction registers as “engagement” and media think they must be offering info that people want. In the digital age, engagement can be counted and tracked, which allows you to quickly adapt and do more of whatever creates that engagement. We’ve been experiencing that optimization loop for the last 20 years and it is now at a deafening roar. We don’t have problems in the world, we have existential crises. We don’t have political disagreements, we have mortal enemies. We don’t have at verbal buffoon for a president, we have a fascist dictator murdering rapist psychopath.

This isn’t the only factor but it is significant and it is also new. Yes, there has been sensationalism in the last but it is new to be able to track media consumption like this and adapt on the fly, automatically. It’s taken us to a whole new level.