I gave up reading the news for a good year for that exact reason. I would scour the stories and end up with panic attacks about the end of the world and all the sh*tty things that could happen to a person at any moment. I just recently started reading again (because I'm obsessed with Ebola) but I can feel those old anxious feelings starting back up.
The problem is I feel like an idiot when people say something like, "Did you hear about what's going on in Ferguson?" and I'm all, "Huh?"