News Avoidance during the Covid-19 Crisis: Understanding Information Overload—News avoidance indeed has a positive effect on perceived well-being

News Avoidance during the Covid-19 Crisis: Understanding Information Overload. Kiki de Bruin et al. Digital Journalism, Aug 6 2021. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2021.1957967

Abstract: This study investigates the degree of news avoidance during the first months of the Covid-19 pandemic in the Netherlands. Based on two panel surveys conducted in the period April–June 2020, this study shows that the increased presence of this behavior, can be explained by negative emotions and feelings the news causes by citizens. Moreover, news avoidance indeed has a positive effect on perceived well-being. These findings point to an acting balance for individual news consumers. In a pandemic such as Covid-19 news consumers need to be informed, but avoiding news is sometimes necessary to stay mentally healthy.

Keywords: Covid-19 crisisinformation overloadinfodemicnews avoidancenews consumptionwell-being

Check also COVID-19: 91pct of stories by US major media outlets are negative in tone vs 65pct for scientific journals; stories of increasing cases are 5.5x stories of decreasing cases even when new cases are declining

Why Is All COVID-19 News Bad News? Sacerdote, Bruce and Sehgal, Ranjan and Cook, Molly. National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper 28110, Nov 2020. https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2020/11/covid-19-91pct-of-stories-by-us-major.html