Whether Corona, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine or forest fires – many feel temporarily powerless and desperate when reading bad news. For some, the reporting even affects their mental and physical well-being, as researchers at Texas Tech University have now discovered. People with obsessive compulsions to constantly check the news are more likely to suffer from stress, anxiety, and physical ailments. This is shown by their study from the journal “Health Communication”.
The phenomenon of news addiction is not new. The behavior since 2018 has been referred to as so-called doom scrolling. “Doom” means destruction. People are glued to their smartphones and are sucking in bad news after bad news.
The global suffering and unhappiness has not increased, the news is just consumed differently. 20 years ago, the day looked like this for many: At breakfast you read the subscribed newspaper, maybe listened to the radio in the car, and in the evening after work there was a news program.
Today, the latest news is available anytime and anywhere. Push notifications are sent to the smartphone, podcasts prepare the day’s events. People no longer have to search for information. They come automatically, without interruption.
Just because the cell phone is in the immediate vicinity can increase the cortisol level, as psychologists have known for a long time. Calling up the news is intended to remedy the unpleasant feeling – and even reinforces it.
“Witnessing what’s happening on the news can put some people in a constant state of alert and make the world seem like a dark, dangerous place,” said Bryan McLaughlin, who was involved in the current study. Those affected get caught in a vicious circle: instead of switching off, they keep reading, listening and watching. They do this to ease their emotional distress, McLaughlin said. Only her life would be increasingly affected by it.
The researchers surveyed 1,100 US citizens in August 2021 about their reading habits and their mental and physical health. While the results of the online survey should be interpreted with caution, they do indicate a trend: 16.5 percent of participants showed signs of “highly problematic” news consumption.
Often, they were so engrossed in and personally affected by events that they could not sleep well, enjoy time with family and friends, or concentrate at work. Respondents with higher media consumption suffered significantly more often from psychological and physical complaints than those who read and watched less television.
In addition, 73.6 percent of those with problematic news consumption felt psychologically stressed “quite often” or “very often”. Only eight percent of all other respondents noticed common symptoms. 61 percent of problem news consumers also reported feeling physically uncomfortable. They suffered from pain or gastrointestinal problems. For the others it was only 6.1 percent.
