News? No thanks

Steering clear of news can be a healthy choice.
Illustration Valerie Geelen

More and more people avoid the news. Which is less worrying than it sounds, says researcher Kiki de Bruin. If only because it’s hard to avoid the news completely.

The wars, the refugees, the climate disasters… it’s enough to make you despair. Whoever follows the news can be sure of a daily serving of misery. Until you decide not to look at it anymore, or to look less. They are called news avoiders: people who opt out of the daily news. Researcher and teacher Kiki de Bruin is studying the phenomenon and hopes to get her PhD on the subject next spring.  

News avoidance is on the rise, shows the annual Digital News Report from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism in Oxford. Worldwide, 39 per cent of people say they avoid the news at times or regularly. Seven years ago, that figure was 29 per cent. ‘In the research I did in 2022 in this country, as many as 60 per cent of those asked said they avoided the news at times or regularly,’ says De Bruin. ‘That was just after the war in Ukraine broke out.’

Civic duty

But what do these figures tell us? Do people avoid news for the same reasons? And are they then completely news-free? The latter is certainly not the case, shows De Bruin’s research. In fact, it’s practically impossible not to follow any news at all. ‘When people say they avoid the news, it often means they are selective about what news they follow. They avoid certain topics and media, or they take a break from the news. In my latest study, which has yet to be published, I asked news avoiders about the information they come across – and therefore absorb – over two months. This enabled me to track the news consumption of 288 people. And then you see that people do get a lot of information anyway. So they avoid the news selectively.’

When people say they avoid the news, it often means they are selective about what news they follow. They avoid certain topics and media

News avoidance is a relatively new phenomenon. De Bruin studied it in the Dutch setting. The term doesn’t really cover the reality of it, she thinks. ‘News avoidance has negative connotations because we see following the news as a kind of civic duty. As if you are shutting yourself off and don’t care about the world. There are people like that, but not many. I think news dosing is a better description of what I see in my research. It’s more a case of consuming news more intentionally than of avoiding news. Steering clear of news can be a healthy choice.’

Excluded

The negative nature of news, the daily misery update, is the main motive for avoiding news for a lot of people. ‘You see the same pattern in every crisis. When it starts, people consume a lot of news because they want to know what’s going on. But the longer it goes on, the more people stop keeping up with it because they feel powerless. News fatigue sets in. The subject still interests them but they don’t want a daily update on the number of deaths in a conflict.

People don’t know what they should see or believe anymore

This has something to do with the times we are living in. The 24/7 daily overload of news is massive. That is the main reason for opting out. There is too much choice. People don’t know what they should see or believe. It is logical that people start filtering.’

So news avoidance doesn’t necessarily lead to news poverty, De Bruin’s research shows. ‘In that sense it is not a cause for concern in general terms. But it does become one if particular demographic groups follow the news much less because it doesn’t represent their worldview. I notice that certain groups don’t relate to the news that is made. They don’t see their lives reflected in it, they don’t understand it, and it makes them feel excluded.’

Young people

Women are overrepresented in that group of ‘news outsiders’. De Bruin has not studied the reasons for that herself. ‘Research has been done on that in other countries. There can be different reasons for it. News is often brutal and that appeals to women less. News is often made by men, with male sources, and thus from a male perspective. Women spend less time on news because they are too busy, running a household alongside a job, for example. I think it’s an interesting question for a follow-up study.’

Young people are another obvious group of news avoiders. De Bruin teaches journalism at HU University of Applied Sciences Utrecht, and sees this all around her. ‘When I talk to students about it, they all relate to it, saying they take a break from the news now and then. They especially avoid the traditional media. Young people don’t watch TV anymore, they don’t listen to the radio, and they don’t read newspapers. They get their news from the digital environment. So are they really news avoiders? There are far more nuances than the word suggests. There is a difference, though, between higher education students and those on vocational training courses. News doesn’t reach the latter group, and that does give cause for concern.’

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