Factfulness

This is data as you have never known it: This is data as therapy.

I want to learn about the world and I want to be aware of the many problems we are running into on a daily basis as the whole of humanity. But it is hard to keep a cool head and remain positive with the onslaught of cynical news and opinions in a time of fast information and highly connected technology. It always seems like the world is just getting worse and worse in a way.
So Rosling's Factfulness sounded like a very interesting and valuable book based on its premise. To use facts and data as proof that the world isn't as bad as we think it is and to alleviate some of that societal cynicism. I was very interested.
But I was also a bit skeptical at first. I was a bit afraid to be running into some guy re-arranging numbers and labels to make real-world problems sound less important or doing a dismissive “numbers don't care about your feelings” shtick which seems to be so popular these days. Luckily, the more I read, the clearer it was that this book is not just data but also filled with a lot of genuine humanity and acknowledgment of real problems in a realistic but also hopeful way.

The book isn't aiming to dismiss certain problems as being less important or not worth worrying about but rather shows statistics to correct certain common misinformation and attempts to add the context that is needed to realize that it's actually going up, not down. Yeah, there is still injustice in the world, wealth isn't spread ideally, climate change is definitely happening, and so on. But, as Rosling writes himself, it's important to remember that it can both be bad and better than it used to be. Acknowledging previous progress is important to keep us motivated to continue to work on these problems and not fall into a fatalistic mindset that everything is already doomed.
Rosling writes a lot about how to read information to prevent toxic assumptions or misinformation through missing context. Being aware of the imbalance between positive and negative stories in the news, simply due to the sensationalistic concept of journalism itself, for example. He talks about the unhelpful instinct to look for someone or something to blame when most problems are more complex than to be caused by a single element. He gives many notes on how to read information better to not lose your own mind.

Each chapter of the book is one tip to get away from that general negativity instinct that most of us have, each paired with a common negative assumption of the world we live in and its respective statistics. Besides the focus on data, Rosling writes in a very human and down-to-earth way. He also has many stories to tell from his personal work as a doctor and statistician, traveling the world all over, that make the text more engaging.
There are one or two little moments where I'm not quite on the same page as Rosling, but overall I found this book to be very informative and pretty charming. Rosling is clearly very passionate about the world we live in and he is even more passionate to spread his hopefulness and confidence for a better future with other people. 
The fact that he worked on this book up until the very end of his life, still making notes and adjustments to the text while literally on his death bed, is also proof that this meant a lot to him.

While this book surely won't be a complete anxiety relief, it does provide a lot of very helpful ways to better deal with the daily news and do our part with less fear and worry.