Endless images of homicide investigations, natural disasters, car crashes, and drug busts fill the airwaves on a daily basis. It's upsetting – but also certainly captivating for the average viewer.

In fact, as Visual Capitalist's Jeff Desjardins notes, the news cycle thrives on fear and violence, so mainstream networks find a way to fill up 99% of programming with these singular events. It's addicting and sometimes anger-inducing, but is it representative of what's really going on in the world?

Today's infographic comes to us from economist Max Roser of Our World in Data, and it highlights six megatrends that show that in many important ways, our world is improving drastically.

The one commonality of these six indicators? They all happen slowly and incrementally, but are more evident with a long-term perspective.

Each family lifted out of poverty, each classroom that gets built, and each village gaining access to basic vaccinations may not seem significant on a scale of billions of people – but over decades, these gains add up to create a richer, more educated, and healthier world and a very powerful statistical story.