If you feel that there is too much news and it bores you, you are not alone. A significant proportion of Americans are overwhelmed by the abundance of news, although this problem is more acute for Republicans, according to a Pew Research Center study.
The study was conducted from February 22 to March 4, 2018.
It turned out that almost 7 out of 10 Americans (68%) feel exhausted by the amount of news coming. Only 3 out of 10 respondents said they were happy with the amount of news they received.
The proportion of Americans reporting a feeling of information overload is in line with the 2016 US presidential election period. At that time, most respondents also expressed a feeling of tiredness from actively covering the elections.
Most Republicans as well as Democrats are tired of the news, but this feeling is more common among Republicans. About three quarters (77%) of Republicans and pro-Republican-minded Americans fail to cope with the flow of news. Among Democrats and those who sympathize with the Democratic Party, this proportion is less (61%).
A sense of news overload is more common among those who follow the news less closely. Of those who follow the news most of the time, 62% feel tired of the news. Among those who are less likely to follow the news, there is a significantly larger (78%) proportion of respondents who reported tiredness from the news.
Most Americans (65%) say they follow the news most of the time. 34% of Americans reported that they follow the news only when something important happens.
According to a study by the Pew Research Center, a total of 17% of Americans say that national media “very well” inform the public about the most important events in the country. 24% of respondents believe that the media do their job “not too” or “not at all good”. The majority (58%) of respondents say that the media work “pretty well.”
Nearly three quarters (73%) of white Americans express fatigue due to a lot of news. This proportion is significantly larger than among US residents of Hispanic descent (55%) and African Americans (also 55%).
Women are somewhat more likely than men to feel information overload (the proportion of those “tired of the news” is 71% and 64%, respectively).
