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Summary: Addictive news users are more likely to suffer from depression, anxiety and physical health problems, according to a new study.
Source: Taylor and Francis Group
A new study published in a peer-reviewed journal has found that people with a high need to constantly check the news are more likely to suffer from stress, anxiety and physical ill-health. Health communication.
In the past two years, we have lived through a series of alarming international events, from the Covid pandemic to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Large-scale protests, mass shootings and devastating wildfires. For many people, reading bad news can make us feel temporarily helpless and anxious.
For others, exposure to a 24-hour news cycle of constantly evolving events can have a profound effect on mental and physical well-being — with people today “highly reporting” high levels of news addiction, according to these new findings. “Severe physical illness.”
Brian McLaughlin, associate professor of advertising at the paper, said: “Witnessing these events in the news can create a constant hypervigilance in some people, driving their need for surveillance into overdrive and making the world seem like a dark and dangerous place.” in the College of Media and Communication at Texas Tech University.
“For these people, a cycle can be created in which they gravitate more toward cramming the news and checking current affairs in the afternoons to relieve their emotional stress, rather than tune it out. But it doesn’t help and the more they check the news, the more it starts to interfere with other aspects of their lives.
To study this phenomenon, known colloquially as news addiction, McLaughlin and colleagues Dr. Melissa Gottlieb and Dr. Devin Mills analyzed data from an online survey of 1,100 American adults.
In the survey, people were asked how much they agreed with the statements “I get so absorbed in the news that I forget the world around me”, “My mind is often busy thinking about the news”, “I get it”. I find it hard to stop reading or watching the news”, and “I often don’t pay attention at school or at work because I’m reading or watching the news.
Respondents were asked how often they experienced feelings of stress and anxiety, as well as physical ailments such as fatigue, body aches, poor concentration and gastrointestinal issues.
The results revealed that 16.5% of those surveyed showed signs of ‘highly problematic’ news consumption. Such individuals are frequently immersed in and personally invested in the news, and the stories dominate the individual’s waking thoughts, disrupt time with family and friends, make it difficult to focus at school or work, and contribute to restlessness and insomnia.
Perhaps not surprisingly, people with high levels of problematic news consumption were more likely to experience mental and physical illness than people with low levels, even when controlling for demographics, personality characteristics, and overall news use.
When survey participants were asked how many mental health or physical symptoms they had experienced in the past month, the results showed:
- Among those identified as heavy news users, 73.6% reported experiencing “a little” or “a lot” of mental illness—repeated symptoms were reported by only 8% of the other study participants.
- Among those with severe levels of distress, 61% reported experiencing “a little” or “a lot” of physical pain, compared to only 6.1% of other study participants.
According to McLaughlin, the findings highlight the need for focused media literacy campaigns to help people develop healthy relationships with news.
“While we want people to stay on the news, it’s important to have a healthy relationship with the news,” he said.
“In most cases, treatment for addictions and compulsive behaviors focuses on stopping the problem behavior completely, because the behavior can be difficult to perform in moderation.
“Research on problematic news use shows that individuals may decide to stop or at least significantly reduce their news consumption if they perceive it to be negatively impacting their mental health.
“For example, previous research has shown that individuals who were aware of the negative impact that constant attention to sensational coverage of Covid-19 was having on their mental health and who were concerned made conscious decisions to adjust.
“However, adaptation not only affects an individual’s access to information necessary for their health and well-being, but also undermines the existence of an informed citizenry, which has implications for sustaining a healthy democracy. This is why a healthy relationship with news consumption is a good condition.
The study also calls for a broader discussion of how the news industry may be exacerbating the problem.
“Economic pressures on outlets, combined with technological advances and a 24-hour news cycle, have encouraged journalists to focus on selecting ‘news’ stories that will attract the attention of news consumers,” says McLaughlin.
“However, for some people, conflicts and dramas that show stories that are newsworthy can not only attract and attract attention, but also create a good relationship with news. Thus, the results of our study emphasize that the commercial pressures faced by news media may not only affect the goal of a healthy democracy, but also harm the health of individuals.
watch out
Limitations of this study include reliance on data collected at one point in time, and the authors were unable to establish a definitive relationship between problematic news consumption and mental and physical illness.
So psychological research news
Author: Simon Wesson
Source: Taylor and Francis Group
Contact: Simon Wesson – Taylor and Francis Group
Image: The image is in the public domain.
Preliminary study: Closed access.
“Caught in a dangerous world: Problematic news consumption and its relationship to mental and physical illness” by Bryan McLaughlin et al. Health relationships
Draft
Caught in a dangerous world: Problematic news consumption and its relationship to mental and physical illness
This study adds to the literature on problematic media behavior by introducing and explaining the concept of problematic news consumption.
Using survey data from a national sample of US adults, we examine the measure structure of problematic news consumption, the existence of latent classes derived from expected factors, and disparities in mental and physical health across adolescent cohorts.
The results show support for the proposed factor structure and also the existence of four latent classes that appear to be distributed according to the severity of problematic news consumption.
Results show higher mental and physical morbidity among people with high problematic news consumption compared to people with low levels, even after controlling for demographics, personality characteristics, and overall news use.
Implications for designing effective media literacy campaigns and developing intervention strategies to increase awareness that news consumption can develop into problem behavior are discussed.
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