At a time when breaking news is available to us constantly, conveniently and faster than ever, it is getting harder and harder to keep up. Every morning, when I check my phone, I have a notification from the New York Times: The Morning, a collection of current news stories from the day or night prior. Scrolling through the headlines, I get a basic overview of world news ranging from political crises, another natural disaster somewhere, the latest international tensions and the newest food-related disease outbreak. It’s hard not to read another headline or story and feel yourself becoming emotionally distant from the actual events happening and the real people that they are affecting.
More Americans are straying from traditional news sources like newspapers, TV stations and public radio. The struggles of the journalism industry, especially with print circulation and demand, are well known.. Part of this is attributed to people consuming less news-related media. Another is the shift of the medium itself.
Bad news is nothing new. Celebrity affairs, political scandals, natural disasters and more have always dominated news cycles. Human nature draws us to where the line between news and entertainment is the most blurred. But the vigor with which news outlets push out these stories to us is like never before.
A whole genre of short-form social media content emerged of people reacting to or giving unsolicited input into shocking news stories or current events. Plus, there’s an even larger audience of people who religiously consume this type of content, not unlike a network reality show. Of course, there are always national headlines, but including our online social media content, there are hundreds of stories that we consciously and unconsciously consume every day.
Whether we realize it or not, this constant barrage of primarily negative information is a burden and takes a significant mental toll. When, month after month, we hear or read about one-half of the country flooding and the other half burning down, it gets to the point when it’s just easiest to bury our heads in the sand.
News fatigue isn’t just about information overload or sensationalism but the extra work we now have to put in before we even begin processing the story itself. The sheer volume of misinformation present in our everyday lives makes it difficult to comb through what is factual. The echo chamber of personalized social media algorithms and news feeds has fueled the infamous ideological divide in political news. People tend to believe what people similar to them believe and nothing else. Moreover, the increasing accessibility of AI-generated pictures and videos has made it even more confusing to determine what is real or not.
Of course, the irony of an article on this topic is not lost on me. As a writer, reader and person hoping to better understand the world and people around me, I realize the value of the news and the privilege of a free press. It’s tiring, yes, to keep up with it all until one day, we are the ones in the news and begging people to pay attention.
As with everything in our lives, balance is key to maintaining sanity while keeping up with the times. Journalism is the historic watchdog of politics, the fourth estate of democracy, and the communicator between people and places all over the world. Keeping up with it is our civic duty, just in moderation.