mean world syndrome
n.— «He coined the phrase “mean world syndrome,” a phenomenon in which people who watch large amounts of television are more likely to believe that the world is an unforgiving and frightening place.» —“George Gerbner, TV violence researcher and theorist, dies at 86″ in Philadelphia, Pa. PennLive.com Dec. 30, 2005. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
It was a dark and stormy night. So begins the long and increasingly convoluted prose of Edwards Bulwer-Lytton’s best-known novel. Today the annual Bulwer-Lytton Contest asks contestants for fanciful first sentences that are similarly...
Enthusiastic book recommendations! Martha’s savoring the biography of Alexander von Humboldt, the 19th-century explorer, polymath, and naturalist who revolutionized our understanding of nature and predicted the effects of human activity on...