A distraught relative of a passenger on the missing Malaysia Airlines jet breaks down while talking to reporters at Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Sepang, Malaysia, on Wednesday, March 19. The Boeing 777-200ER disappeared during a March 8 flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Searchers from 26 countries are trying to pinpoint Flight 370's location somewhere along two vast arcs, one stretching deep into the Asian landmass, the other far out into the Indian Ocean. 
A relative of Chinese passengers aboard the missing plane waits for a news briefing by officials in Beijing on Tuesday, March 18. 
A relative of a Chinese passenger aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 tells reporters in Beijing on March 18 about a hunger strike to protest authorities' handling of information about the missing jet. 
A member of Indonesia's National Search and Rescue Agency joins in a search for the missing plane in the Andaman Sea area around the northern tip of Indonesia's Sumatra on Monday, March 17. 
Relatives of passengers aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 watch a news program about the missing plane as they await information at a hotel ballroom in Beijing on March 17. 
Malaysian Transportation Minister Hishamuddin Hussein, center, shows maps of the search area March 17 at a hotel in Sepang, Malaysia, next to the Kuala Lumpur International Airport. 
U.S. Navy crew members assist in search-and-rescue operations Sunday, March 16, in the Indian Ocean. 
Indonesian personnel watch over high seas during a search operation in the Andaman Sea on Saturday, March 15. 
A foam plane, which has personalized messages for the missing flight's passengers, is seen at a viewing gallery March 15 at Kuala Lumpur International Airport. 
A member of the Malaysian navy makes a call as his ship approaches a Chinese Coast Guard ship in the South China Sea on March 15. 
A Indonesian ship heads to the Andaman Sea during a search operation near the tip of Sumatra, Indonesia, on March 15. 
Elementary school students pray for the missing passengers during class in Medan, Indonesia, on March 15. 
Col. Vu Duc Long of the Vietnam air force fields reporters' questions at an air base in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, after a search operation on Friday, March 14. 
Members of the Chinese navy continue search operations on Thursday, March 13. The search area for Flight 370 has grown wider. After starting in the sea between Malaysia and Vietnam, the plane's last confirmed location, efforts are expanding west into the Indian Ocean. 
A Vietnamese military official looks out an aircraft window during search operations March 13. 
Malaysian air force members look for debris on March 13 near Kuala Lumpur. 
A relative of a missing passenger watches TV at a Beijing hotel as she waits for the latest news March 13. 
A member of the Indonesian National Search and Rescue Agency scans the horizon in the Strait of Malacca on Wednesday, March 12. 
Relatives of missing passengers wait for the latest news at a hotel in Beijing on March 12. 
Journalists raise their hands to ask questions during a news conference in Sepang on March 12. 
Indonesian air force officers in Medan, Indonesia, examine a map of the Strait of Malacca on March 12. 
A member of the Vietnamese air force checks a map while searching for the missing plane on Tuesday, March 11. 
Iranians Pouri Nourmohammadi, second left, and Delavar Seyed Mohammad Reza, far right, were identified by Interpol as the two men who used stolen passports to board the flight. But there's no evidence to suggest either was connected to any terrorist organizations, according to Malaysian investigators. Malaysian police believe Nourmohammadi was trying to emigrate to Germany using the stolen Austrian passport. 
An Indonesian navy crew member scans an area of the South China Sea bordering Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand on Monday, March 10. 
Vietnam air force Col. Le Huu Hanh is reflected on the navigation control panel of a plane that is part of the search operation over the South China Sea on March 10. 
Relatives of the missing flight's passengers wait in a Beijing hotel room on March 10. 
A U.S. Navy Seahawk helicopter lands aboard the USS Pinckney to change crews before returning to search for the missing plane Sunday, March 9, in the Gulf of Thailand. 
Members of the Fo Guang Shan rescue team offer a special prayer March 9 at Kuala Lumpur International Airport. 
A handout picture provided by the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency shows personnel checking a radar screen during search-and-rescue operations March 9. 
Italian tourist Luigi Maraldi, who reported his passport stolen in August, shows his current passport during a news conference at a police station in Phuket island, Thailand, on March 9. Two passengers on the missing Malaysia Airlines flight were reportedly traveling on stolen passports belonging to Maraldi and an Austrian citizen whose papers were stolen two years ago. 
Hugh Dunleavy, commercial director of Malaysia Airlines, speaks to journalists March 9 at a Beijing hotel where relatives and friends of the missing flight's passengers are staying. 
Vietnamese air force crew stand in front of a plane at Tan Son Nhat airport in Ho Chi Minh City on March 9 before heading out to the area between Vietnam and Malaysia where the airliner vanished. 
Buddhist monks at Kuala Lumpur International Airport offer a special prayer for the missing passengers on March 9. 
The Chinese navy warship Jinggangshan prepares to leave Zhanjiang Port early on March 9 to assist in search-and-rescue operations for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight. The Jinggangshan, an amphibious landing ship, is loaded with lifesaving equipment, underwater detection devices and supplies of oil, water and food. 
Members of a Chinese emergency response team board a rescue vessel at the port of Sanya in China's Hainan province on March 9. The vessel is carrying 12 divers and will rendezvous with another rescue vessel on its way to the area where contact was lost with Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. 
The rescue vessel sets out from Sanya in the South China Sea. 
A family member of missing passengers is mobbed by journalists at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on Saturday, March 8. 
A Vietnamese air force plane found traces of oil that authorities had suspected to be from the missing Malaysia Airlines plane, the Vietnamese government online newspaper reported March 8. However, a sample from the slick showed it was bunker oil, typically used to power large cargo ships, Malaysia's state news agency, Bernama, reported on March 10. 
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, center, arrives to meet family members of missing passengers at the reception center at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on March 8. 
Malaysia Airlines official Joshua Law Kok Hwa, center, speaks to reporters in Beijing on March 8. 
A relative of two missing passengers reacts at their home in Kuala Lumpur on March 8. 
Wang Yue, director of marketing of Malaysia Airlines in China, reads a company statement during a news conference at the Metro Park Lido Hotel in Beijing on March 8. 
Chinese police at the Beijing airport stand beside the arrival board showing delayed Flight 370 in red on March 8. 
A woman asks a staff member at the Beijing airport for more information on the missing flight. 
A Malaysian man who says he has relatives on board the missing plane talks to journalists at the Beijing airport on March 8. 
Passengers walk past a Malaysia Airlines sign on March 8 at Kuala Lumpur International Airport. 
Malaysia Airlines Group CEO Ahmad Juahari Yahya, front, speaks during a news conference on March 8 at a hotel in Sepang. "We deeply regret that we have lost all contacts" with the jet, he said.
- Sally Kohn: We're obsessed with missing Malaysia flight; why not other tragedies?
- Kohn: Stories about death in huge numbers, mystery and innocent victims fascinate us
- Kohn: Cancer, guns, AIDS, trafficking take many more lives, yet we don't pay attention
- She says those stories don't have the suddenness and don't push panic buttons
Editor's note: Sally Kohn is a progressive activist, columnist and television commentator. Follow her on Twitter @sallykohn.
(CNN) -- It makes sense that we're all obsessed with the missing Malaysia Airlines flight 370. What I find more mysterious is why we aren't obsessed with other arguably more important stories.
The missing Malaysia Airlines plane falls right at the nexus of several gripping story lines in the public narrative. Stories about death inherently hold our attention. The more dark among us -- and HBO producers -- might attribute this to a lust for the gruesome. Freud would simply call it our "death drive" — that mix of fear and fascination that our lives must ultimately end. Regardless, as Jack Schaeffer noted in Reuters, media coverage has always hewed toward dark sensationalism to feed the cravings of a hungry audience.
There's something about death in sudden, large numbers that grabs our attention. Every year, about 32,000 people are killed by guns in the United States. And yet the routine daily suicides and shootings don't seem to command our attention or even our compassion in quite the same way as mass shootings like Aurora or Sandy Hook. Of course, we also respond to whom the victims are: When they are innocent little children, the dismay is more intense.
It's not just about numbers — the idea that suddenly a large group of people are harmed. While the unknown fate of the 239 souls aboard the Malaysia flight is unquestionably looming with tragedy, on the same day the plane went missing around 20,000 people died from cancer worldwide. Around 4,000 people worldwide died from AIDS on the same day. In the 11 days since the plane has been missing, more than 1,000 people have likely died from drug overdoses in the United States alone. Why don't we care about these tales of death? Or perhaps more important, how could we care more?
The other gripping story line of the missing Malaysia flight is, of course, the mystery. It's a real whodunnit unfolding live before our very eyes. Adding to the fascination is certainly the fact that, as Farhad Majoo eloquently pointed out in the New York Times, a genuine mystery would seem impossible in our hyper-connected, over-surveilled day and age.
Majoo writes: "The disappearance stands in stark contrast to the hallmark sensation of our time, the certainty that we're all being constantly tracked and that, for better or worse, we're strapped to the grid, never out of touch. It turns out that's not true."
Families frustrated with lack of info 
Malaysia probe focuses on westerly turn 
Pilot was 'against any form of extremism' But if that is really the hallmark norm of our era, then why aren't we equally fixated on the fact that in this day and age, 1 million children are exploited by the global commercial sex trade every single year — many disappearing right out from under the eyes of loved ones or government agencies. Shocking, right? But worthy of our 24/7 attention? Apparently not.
"The problem with our always-on culture is that actually, we're not always focused on stuff that matters, just stuff that triggers," says Micah Sifry, co-founder of the Personal Democracy Forum. "The news business has long understood this, but now the rise of social media seems to be making the problem even worse, since it is fragmenting our attention down to the individual level."
Still it raises the question -- what about the things that arguably matter and on some level trigger, just not enough? Is there a way to make the daily scourge of AIDS and child sex trafficking and gun violence as gripping as a missing jumbo jet?
No, says Bea Arthur, a licensed therapist and founder of PrettyPaddedRoom.com. Arthur argues its not just the conflation of compelling plot lines that makes the Malaysia plane story so gripping — it's the fact that it's a lot of people, that it happened suddenly, and that we still don't know what happened. What grabs us is the idea that a plane can suddenly, unpredictably drop out of the sky. It ruptures our need for control.
"People want details because they want to know this won't happen to them," Arthur says. Arthur suggests our fascination with tragedies like the Malaysia plane is less about the basic facts of death or scale or even mystery but simply the egotistical desire to categorically exempt ourselves from whatever new possibility of bad things happening arise out of the story. "It's about ego and self-preservation and wanting some sense of control," Arthur says.
In other words, even though we are more likely to die from cancer (1 in 4 odds for men, 1 in 5 odds for women) than a plane crash (1 in 11,000,000 million odds), cancer feels like a known, even avoidable threat (even if it's not) whereas the missing plane pushes our personal panic button.
The media can keep trying to tell the stories of poor people dying from lack of food and shelter, of children in rural communities and inner cities dying from gun violence, of black and Latina woman disproportionately being infected with and dying from HIV/AIDS. These stories are vital, especially when told in careful ways that don't just elicit individual sympathy but illuminate larger structural implications and the need for solutions. But no matter how numerous, no matter how gruesome and no matter how pressing, these and other critical stories may never pierce our consciousness, let alone capture world attention.
Then again, Arthur points out, the Malaysia plane story is only interesting until it ends.
"Once there's closure ... we'll go on and forget about it, too," she says. "Strange comfort that, in the end, all stories — important or intriguing or in between — fall victim to our short attention span.
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