Is it possible the news is getting to us? Today, we are more likely than ever to have our fears stoked by a national media that wants clicks and ratings. There is an incentive to overplay rumors, sickness, death, and the dark side of humanity. If it bleeds, it leads.

In our atomized society — where people who are disconnected from friends and family and institutions (church attendance, belonging to a club, etc.), and instead have “virtual” friends and experiences and consume copious amounts of media without the check of walking outside and seeing that nothing much has changed in their own small town, we are more likely to go further and further down the rabbit hole.

Things have changed so much in the last 20 years that the recent movie World War Z, about the zombie apocalypse (originally misidentified in the book and movie as rabies), felt scarier — seemed more like real life — than the 1995 film Outbreak did at the time. It might seem extraordinary that a movie about zombies is easier to identify with than a film about a real-life virus. But am I wrong? The country has changed — and not in a good way. We are more prone to fear today than we were then. And our political and media leaders aren’t exactly easing our worries — they’re stoking them.