WASHINGTON: Americans are becoming increasingly exhausted by the avalanche of news — even more so than during the 2016 presidential election, a survey showed on Tuesday.
The Pew Research Center survey showed 68 per cent of respondents feel “worn out” by the amount of news they are seeing, compared with only 30 per cent who say they like the amount of information they get. The percentage suffering from information overload is higher than the 59 per cent in a similar survey during the 2016 election, Pew found.
More Republicans than Democrats expressed feelings of news exhaustion, and levels were higher among those with an unfavourable view of the media.
The survey of 5,035 adults conducted from February 22 to March 4 found that 77 per cent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents expressed feelings of news exhaustion, compared with 61 per cent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents. Two-thirds of those surveyed said they followed national news most of the time, and one-third followed developments only when something important is happening.
Nonetheless, 75 per cent said the media do “very well” or “fairly well” in keeping them informed about important news.
