Positive news is hard to come by.

Go on any social media platform and negative news will likely be at the forefront of headlines. Fires, shootings, murders, theft, it's what attracts media attention, and it's what draws readers in for more.

The fact is clear, people like bad news, but only as long as it's not affecting them. News publications can attest to the fact that bad news draws in much more attention than good news. So the reason the news is filled with negativity isn't the fault of the organizations, it's the fault of the readers.

The irony is, readers cry for good news, but when it does appear in nearly every issue of the paper, it gets drastically lower reads than its negative cousin.

There is a news mantra: "If it bleeds, it leads" and its true. If it's not a major sports story, the front page is usually reserved for a fire that destroyed a house, or a murder on 56th street that rocked a neighborhood. It isn't inherently bad to push bad news, what's bad is that readers ask for more good news, but crave bad news.

Why is it that people crave negative headlines?

Let's take a quiz, out of the following headlines, which strikes you first?

- Fire Destroys Houston Household, Kills 6

- 159 killed in Train derailment

- Zoo Discovers new Species of Frog

- 60 suffer Gunshot Wounds in Factory Incident

Was it the good headline or one of the negative headlines that caught your eye first? Likely one of the negative stories, because that is what humans are wired to seek out.

We as a species are built for stimulation and that is exactly what drama gives us. Psychologically speaking, drama fires up our brains and gets the blood flowing because it wakes us up, keeps our brains at unrest.

Evolutionary psychologists and neurologists say that our brains evolved in a hunter-gatherer environment where the most novel and dramatic events were the ones that needed immediate attention. So while we may not be defending ourselves against wild animals or trying to survive the winter, our brains are still adjusted to seek out and observe the most dramatic and negative aspects in life.

The Pew Research centre survey found that in 20 years of research, people's interests in news have not changed. Over 20 years, interests have remained on as war, weather, crime, and money, just to name a few.

20 years has proved that people will likely always be drawn to negative news. We as a society like to know what has gone wrong, instead of what has gone right.

Next time you find yourself scrolling through the news or social media, try to note how many good news stories you see compared to bad news.