- News avoidance is common and rising. In recent Reuters Institute Digital News Reports, around four in ten people across dozens of countries say they sometimes or often avoid the news.
- Heavy news exposure has a real stress cost. Alison Holman, Dana Rose Garfin and Roxane Cohen Silver (PNAS, 2014) found people who consumed six or more hours a day of Boston Marathon bombing coverage reported more acute stress than some people who were there.
- Stuart Soroka, Patrick Fournier and Lilach Nir (PNAS, 2019) found people across 17 countries showed stronger physiological reactions to negative news than positive news, which is part of why negative stories dominate.
- Election periods intensify it. The American Psychological Association's Stress in America survey found 68% of US adults called the 2020 presidential election a significant source of stress.
- Total avoidance has costs too. The middle path is a news diet: fixed times, chosen sources, fewer alerts and less passive scrolling, especially before the US midterms on Tuesday, November 3.
In This Article
News avoidance is no longer a fringe habit. In recent Reuters Institute Digital News Reports, around four in ten people across dozens of countries say they sometimes or often avoid the news. The reasons they give are consistent: it brings their mood down, there is too much of it, and it leaves them feeling powerless.
With the US midterm elections on Tuesday, November 3, that feeling is about to intensify. The research suggests the answer is not to tune out entirely. It is to stop letting the news decide when and how much you take in.
Why are so many people avoiding the news?
The Reuters Institute at the University of Oxford surveys news habits in dozens of countries each year. Its reports have tracked selective news avoidance rising over the past decade, to around four in ten in recent editions. Benjamin Toff and Antonis Kalogeropoulos analyzed the earlier data (Public Opinion Quarterly, 2020) and found avoidance was linked to lower interest in news and to the sense that news is depressing or overwhelming.
People are not avoiding information. They are avoiding a feeling. And the feeling has a physiological basis.
What does constant news do to your stress response?
The most striking evidence comes from research after the Boston Marathon bombings in 2013. Alison Holman, Dana Rose Garfin and Roxane Cohen Silver surveyed a large national sample in the weeks that followed (PNAS, 2014). People who consumed six or more hours a day of bombing-related media reported higher acute stress than some people who had been directly exposed to the event.
That is not because watching is worse than being there. It is because repeated, vivid, continuous exposure keeps the threat alive in the nervous system. Each new clip, alert and replay is another small activation.
We have written about why the brain treats information as load in Digital Overwhelm, and why scrolling drains attention in Brain Rot. News is a special case because so much of it is designed to signal danger.
Why bad news grabs us harder
Stuart Soroka, Patrick Fournier and Lilach Nir measured heart rate and skin conductance while people in 17 countries watched news stories (PNAS, 2019). Across countries, people showed stronger physiological reactions to negative news than to positive news.
This negativity bias makes evolutionary sense: noticing threats mattered more than noticing good news. But it creates a feedback loop. Negative stories hold attention, so they spread further and get produced more. The news you see is a sample tilted towards threat, which is not an accurate picture of how dangerous your life actually is.
Election stress is real
Election periods concentrate all of this. Coverage is constant, stakes feel personal, and outcomes are uncertain for weeks. The American Psychological Association's Stress in America survey found 68% of US adults said the 2020 presidential election was a significant source of stress in their lives.
Uncertainty is part of the cost. The stress response is especially sensitive to unpredictable threats, and an election night with no clear result is a textbook case. We explain how uncertainty and stress degrade judgment in Why Stress Kills Good Decisions.
Is it bad to avoid the news?
Total avoidance has its own costs. People who disengage completely can miss information that affects them directly, from public health guidance to the local races on their ballot. The aim is not to know nothing. It is to know what you need without paying a constant stress tax.
Think of it the way the 7 types of rest framework treats sensory and mental rest. The goal is not zero input. It is input you choose, with recovery in between.
How to build a news diet
Pick your times. One or two set times a day, for example mid-morning and early evening. Not first thing in bed, and not last thing at night.
Turn off breaking news alerts. Alerts are designed to interrupt. Almost nothing in them requires you to act within minutes.
Choose two or three sources. Fewer, better sources beat a feed of everything. Prefer formats that summarize rather than replay.
Read rather than watch. Text gives you the information with less of the vivid, repeated imagery Holman's research links to stress.
Separate updating from doomscrolling. Updating ends when you know what happened. Doomscrolling continues because you hope the next post will make you feel better. It rarely does.
Turn concern into one action. Voting, volunteering or calling a representative converts helplessness into agency, which is the feeling most news avoiders say they lack.
An election week plan
- Before the day: make your plan to vote, then reduce checking.
- On election day: vote, then do something absorbing that is not a screen.
- Election night: decide in advance when you will stop watching. Results will still be there in the morning, and sleep is a better investment than a third hour of commentary.
- The days after: results may take time. Check once or twice a day, not every few minutes.
When news affects your mental health
If news leaves you persistently anxious, hopeless or unable to sleep, or if you find yourself checking compulsively, it is worth talking to someone. Our essay on AI anxiety and the nervous system covers a related pattern of ambient, uncontrollable threat. In the US you can call or text 988. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans are on 116 123.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is news avoidance?
News avoidance is deliberately limiting or avoiding the news, either occasionally or consistently. Researchers distinguish selective avoidance, where people avoid certain topics or periods, from consistent avoidance. In recent Reuters Institute Digital News Reports, around four in ten people say they sometimes or often avoid the news, most often because it lowers their mood, feels overwhelming or leaves them feeling powerless.
Is it bad to avoid the news?
Not necessarily. Limiting news can protect your mental health, especially during intense news cycles. But complete avoidance can leave you less informed about decisions that affect you, such as elections and public health guidance. Most of the evidence supports a middle path: deliberate, limited news consumption at set times from chosen sources, rather than constant exposure or total avoidance.
Can watching the news cause stress?
Yes. Alison Holman, Dana Rose Garfin and Roxane Cohen Silver found that people who consumed six or more hours of daily media coverage of the Boston Marathon bombings in the week afterwards reported higher acute stress than some people who were directly exposed to the event. Repeated exposure to distressing news keeps the stress response engaged, especially when it is graphic and continuous.
How do I deal with election stress?
Limit how often you check results and coverage, turn off breaking news alerts, choose one or two trusted sources, and set a time each day for news rather than checking constantly. Focus on actions within your control, such as voting and making a plan to vote, and protect sleep, especially on election night. It is reasonable to step away from coverage once you have the information you need.
How much news is too much?
There is no exact threshold, but warning signs include checking news compulsively, feeling anxious or hopeless after reading it, losing sleep to scrolling, and finding it hard to concentrate on other things. If news consumption is affecting your mood or functioning, reducing it to set times and fewer sources is a reasonable first step.