6 in 10 Americans say they need to limit political news to avoid feeling burned out
When her husband turned on the TV to listen to the news about upcoming presidential electionThat was usually the signal for Lori Johnson Malveaux to leave the room.
Maybe too much. Often she’ll head to the TV in the other room to watch a movie on the Hallmark or BET channel. She craves something comforting and entertaining. And in that, she has company.
While about half of Americans say they follow political news “extremely” or “very” closely, about 6 in 10 say they need to limit how much they follow. information they consume about government And politics to avoid feeling overwhelmed or tired, according to a new survey from Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research And The Truth of America.
Make no mistake: Malveaux plans to vote. She always has. “I just got to the point where I didn’t want to listen to the rhetoric anymore,” she said.
The 54-year-old Democrat said she feels most uncomfortable when she hears people on the news tell her that things she witnessed firsthand — like the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol — didn’t actually happen.
“I feel like I’m being gaslit. That’s all I can say,” she said.
Sometimes it feels like ‘a bombardment’
Caleb Pack, 23, a Republican from Ardmore, Oklahoma, who works in IT, tries to stay informed through the news feed on his phone, which has a variety of sources, including CNN, fox News, The Wall Street Journal and The Associated Press.
But sometimes, Pack said, it feels like a bombardment.
“It’s good to know what’s going on, but both sides are a little bit extreme,” he said. “It feels like this is the talk everywhere, and it’s hard to escape it.”
Media fatigue is not a new phenomenon. A Pew Research Center Survey conducted in late 2019 found that about two in three Americans feel exhausted by the amount of news available, similar to the results of a poll conducted in early 2018. During the 2016 presidential campaign, about six in 10 people felt overwhelmed by campaign news.
But it can be especially damaging when it comes to news related to politics. The AP-NORC/USAFacts poll found that half of Americans feel the need to limit their consumption of news related to crime or conflicts abroad, while only about 4 in 10 limit their consumption of news about the economy and jobs.
This is understandable given the constant coverage of politics by television channels like CNN, Fox News Channel, and MSNBC, and the plethora of political news online, which is sometimes further complicated by misinformation.
“There is so much information out there, and people are having a hard time figuring out what is true and what is not,” said Richard Coffin, director of research and advocacy at USAFacts.
Women are more likely to feel they need to limit media
In the AP-NORC poll, about 6 in 10 men said they follow election and political news at least “very” closely, compared with about half of women. For all types of news, not just politics, women were more likely than men to report a need to limit their media consumption, the survey found.
The poll also found that white adults were more likely to say they need to limit their exposure to political media than black or Hispanic adults.
Kaleb Aravzo, 19, a Democrat, gets his basic news by listening to National Public Radio in the morning at home in Logan, Utah. Too much politics, especially when he uses social media sites like TikTok and Instagramcan cause anxiety and depression.
“If it pops up on my page while I’m on social media, I’ll just scroll past it,” he said.
