The Real Crisis Isn’t the Headlines—It’s Our Addiction to Them
The world is full of real emergencies. But the systems delivering them have turned staying informed into an endless, anxiety-driven loop—and more people are opting out.
By TheMurrow Editorial
January 18, 2026
Key Points
- 1Recognize the real crisis: platforms turn being informed into an endless, high-urgency feed that makes stopping feel irresponsible.
- 2Track the data: Reuters shows news avoidance rising to 40%, driven by mood harm and overload—not apathy or ignorance.
- 3Reclaim agency: set boundaries, disable nonessential alerts, and favor summaries with edges over infinite scroll streams built for engagement.
The modern news crisis doesn’t look like the old one. There are no boys hawking extras on street corners, no single broadcast anchoring the national mood at 6 p.m. The crisis fits in a pocket and lights up on command.
Plenty of the headlines are real emergencies: wars, elections, climate events, mass violence. The problem is not that the world is calm and the media is hysterical. The problem is that we have built a delivery system that turns “being informed” into a never-finished task—an always-on feed optimized to keep us scanning for the next hit of urgency.
39%
In the Reuters Institute’s Digital News Report 2024, about 39% of respondents across markets said they sometimes or often avoid the news (up from 36% a year earlier and 29% in 2017).
40%
The Reuters Institute’s Digital News Report 2025 puts news avoidance at 40%, tied for the highest recorded—suggesting many people are opting out to protect their nervous systems, not because nothing matters.
People aren’t tuning out because nothing matters. They’re tuning out because the way news arrives now can feel like a nervous system trap.
The real crisis isn’t that the headlines exist. It’s that the machinery delivering them is designed to make stopping feel irresponsible.
— — TheMurrow Editorial
What we’re watching is a collision between a civic ideal—stay informed—and a product reality—never let the user leave.
The new “headline” is a platform object
For most readers, “the news” no longer means a front page curated by editors. It means a stream shaped by devices, platforms, alerts, thumbnails, and social context—often arriving before anyone has asked for it.
The scale of the shift is hard to overstate. Pew Research reports that 86% of U.S. adults say they at least sometimes get news from a smartphone, computer, or tablet, and 56% do so often. Even more telling: Pew’s 2025 fact sheet finds about 53% of U.S. adults say they at least sometimes get news from social media (survey conducted Aug. 18–24, 2025).
The “headline,” in other words, isn’t just a sentence atop a story. It’s a unit of platform content—a caption next to a creator’s reaction, a push notification with no context, a video thumbnail engineered to provoke a click. That changes what gets attention, what feels urgent, and what gets remembered.
The scale of the shift is hard to overstate. Pew Research reports that 86% of U.S. adults say they at least sometimes get news from a smartphone, computer, or tablet, and 56% do so often. Even more telling: Pew’s 2025 fact sheet finds about 53% of U.S. adults say they at least sometimes get news from social media (survey conducted Aug. 18–24, 2025).
The “headline,” in other words, isn’t just a sentence atop a story. It’s a unit of platform content—a caption next to a creator’s reaction, a push notification with no context, a video thumbnail engineered to provoke a click. That changes what gets attention, what feels urgent, and what gets remembered.
86%
Pew Research: 86% of U.S. adults at least sometimes get news from a smartphone, computer, or tablet—a distribution shift that makes news feel ambient, not chosen.
53%
Pew’s 2025 fact sheet: about 53% of U.S. adults at least sometimes get news from social media, meaning headlines often arrive via algorithms rather than editors.
Where news shows up now (and why it matters)
Pew’s Aug. 2025 platform breakdown shows how diversified—and fragmented—the news habit has become. Americans who regularly get news from social platforms include:
- Facebook (38%)
- YouTube (35%)
- Instagram (20%)
- TikTok (20%)
- X (12%)
- Reddit (9%)
Each of these environments rewards different styles of communication. A newspaper front page can afford subtlety; a recommendation feed typically punishes it. Editors may still care about accuracy and proportionality, but distribution often cares more about watch time, shares, and repeat opens.
The result is a news experience that feels less like reading and more like being pinged—a posture of constant readiness, not reflection.
- Facebook (38%)
- YouTube (35%)
- Instagram (20%)
- TikTok (20%)
- X (12%)
- Reddit (9%)
Each of these environments rewards different styles of communication. A newspaper front page can afford subtlety; a recommendation feed typically punishes it. Editors may still care about accuracy and proportionality, but distribution often cares more about watch time, shares, and repeat opens.
The result is a news experience that feels less like reading and more like being pinged—a posture of constant readiness, not reflection.
“Addiction” is a powerful word—and a loaded one
Many people describe their relationship with news as an addiction, and the metaphor fits emotionally: the checking, the compulsion, the uneasy sense that stopping will make you miss something you can’t afford to miss.
Still, “addiction” is medically loaded language. A careful view distinguishes between clinical addiction and patterns experts more commonly call compulsive use, problematic use, habit loops, or behavioral dependence. That distinction matters because it changes the solution. If the problem is simply individual weakness, the fix is willpower. If the problem is a system designed to intensify and monetize attention, the fix is bigger than personal discipline.
Harvard Health offers a widely cited description of doomscrolling as prolonged, compulsive scrolling through distressing content, along with ripple effects that can touch stress and mental health. That framing points away from morality tales (“stop being weak”) and toward behavior patterns (“notice the loop, change the environment”).
Still, “addiction” is medically loaded language. A careful view distinguishes between clinical addiction and patterns experts more commonly call compulsive use, problematic use, habit loops, or behavioral dependence. That distinction matters because it changes the solution. If the problem is simply individual weakness, the fix is willpower. If the problem is a system designed to intensify and monetize attention, the fix is bigger than personal discipline.
Harvard Health offers a widely cited description of doomscrolling as prolonged, compulsive scrolling through distressing content, along with ripple effects that can touch stress and mental health. That framing points away from morality tales (“stop being weak”) and toward behavior patterns (“notice the loop, change the environment”).
Doomscrolling isn’t a diagnosis—but it is a pattern
“Doomscrolling” has entered mainstream language because it names a modern experience: consuming negative updates in a way that feels both voluntary and involuntary. Scholarship and clinical commentary tend to treat it as a behavior pattern linked to anxiety and stress rather than a formal diagnosis.
That nuance should sharpen—not soften—the critique. If doomscrolling is a pattern, then patterns can be shaped. Interfaces can either interrupt compulsive use or deepen it. Newsrooms can either collaborate with the loop or create off-ramps.
That nuance should sharpen—not soften—the critique. If doomscrolling is a pattern, then patterns can be shaped. Interfaces can either interrupt compulsive use or deepen it. Newsrooms can either collaborate with the loop or create off-ramps.
Calling it ‘doomscrolling’ can sound trendy. Living it feels like a civic duty with withdrawal symptoms.
— — TheMurrow Editorial
The uncomfortable truth is that the news can be urgent and the delivery mechanism can still be unhealthy.
News avoidance is rising—and it’s not just apathy
A generation ago, “news avoidance” sounded like ignorance or indifference. Now it increasingly reads as self-defense.
The Reuters Institute’s Digital News Report 2024 found 39% of respondents across markets sometimes or often avoid the news, rising to 40% in 2025. Those are not marginal numbers; they describe a large share of the public developing an intentional relationship with information—more selective, more guarded, sometimes more distrustful.
The reasons people give are revealing because they describe harm, not disinterest. In 2025 summaries shared by the Reuters Institute and industry writeups, reported reasons for avoiding news include:
- Negative effect on mood (39%)
- Burnout/overload from the amount of news (31%)
- Too much war and conflict (30%)
- Too much politics (29%)
Those numbers suggest that many people aren’t running away from reality. They’re running away from a certain presentation of reality—relentless, repetitive, and emotionally expensive.
The Reuters Institute’s Digital News Report 2024 found 39% of respondents across markets sometimes or often avoid the news, rising to 40% in 2025. Those are not marginal numbers; they describe a large share of the public developing an intentional relationship with information—more selective, more guarded, sometimes more distrustful.
The reasons people give are revealing because they describe harm, not disinterest. In 2025 summaries shared by the Reuters Institute and industry writeups, reported reasons for avoiding news include:
- Negative effect on mood (39%)
- Burnout/overload from the amount of news (31%)
- Too much war and conflict (30%)
- Too much politics (29%)
Those numbers suggest that many people aren’t running away from reality. They’re running away from a certain presentation of reality—relentless, repetitive, and emotionally expensive.
The rise of the “selective avoider”
The Reuters Institute draws an important distinction between “consistent avoiders” (low interest) and “selective avoiders” (high awareness, but avoiding overload or mood damage). That should change how editors interpret the trend. A selective avoider may still care deeply about public life. They just don’t want to live inside a siren.
If you’re building journalism for that reader, the obvious question becomes: what would a news product look like if it respected attention as a finite resource?
If you’re building journalism for that reader, the obvious question becomes: what would a news product look like if it respected attention as a finite resource?
The attention economy changed journalism’s incentives
News organizations have always competed for attention, but digital distribution rewired the incentives. On platforms, the most valuable commodity is not a subscription or even trust. It’s continued engagement—the extra minute, the second click, the reflexive refresh.
That pressure shapes editorial choices in ways audiences can feel even if they can’t name them. Stories tilt toward conflict. Updates multiply even when the facts barely move. Political coverage becomes a permanent horse race. War and crisis dominate because they’re intrinsically high-arousal, and high-arousal content tends to travel.
None of this requires a conspiracy. It only requires a marketplace where attention is scarce and metrics are immediate.
That pressure shapes editorial choices in ways audiences can feel even if they can’t name them. Stories tilt toward conflict. Updates multiply even when the facts barely move. Political coverage becomes a permanent horse race. War and crisis dominate because they’re intrinsically high-arousal, and high-arousal content tends to travel.
None of this requires a conspiracy. It only requires a marketplace where attention is scarce and metrics are immediate.
The paradox: “Stay informed” vs. “Never stop”
Civic culture tells people to keep up, to be responsible, to read. Platform culture tells people the same thing—but in a way that offers no stopping point. The feed does not end. The alert arrives without consent. The “for you” page treats your anxiety as a preference.
The Reuters Institute’s reasons for avoidance—mood harm and overload—are exactly what you would expect from a system that removes natural boundaries. A newspaper ends. A broadcast ends. A feed is engineered not to.
The Reuters Institute’s reasons for avoidance—mood harm and overload—are exactly what you would expect from a system that removes natural boundaries. A newspaper ends. A broadcast ends. A feed is engineered not to.
When news has no edges, it doesn’t feel like knowledge. It feels like exposure.
— — TheMurrow Editorial
The result is a public that is simultaneously saturated with information and starving for clarity.
The mental health loop: why negative news is sticky
Doomscrolling isn’t just a bad habit; it’s a predictable response to uncertainty. When events feel unstable—war, elections, economic anxiety—people reach for updates the way they reach for reassurance. The update rarely reassures. It usually produces new uncertainty. So the loop repeats.
Harvard Health’s discussion of doomscrolling emphasizes how prolonged exposure to distressing content can ripple into stress and mental strain. That doesn’t mean “don’t read the news.” It means the form of news delivery matters, and so does the volume.
The stickiness is not accidental. The modern news environment delivers:
- Speed over synthesis (more updates, fewer explanations)
- High-emotion frames (conflict, outrage, fear)
- Social amplification (your friend’s panic becomes your prompt)
- Notifications that turn curiosity into a reflex
Harvard Health’s discussion of doomscrolling emphasizes how prolonged exposure to distressing content can ripple into stress and mental strain. That doesn’t mean “don’t read the news.” It means the form of news delivery matters, and so does the volume.
The stickiness is not accidental. The modern news environment delivers:
- Speed over synthesis (more updates, fewer explanations)
- High-emotion frames (conflict, outrage, fear)
- Social amplification (your friend’s panic becomes your prompt)
- Notifications that turn curiosity into a reflex
Real-world example: the push alert treadmill
Push notifications are a clean illustration of how civic information becomes compulsion. An alert can be genuinely important. It can also be marginal (“Developing story…” with no development) and still trigger the same stress response: check now, or risk missing something crucial.
On platforms, the same dynamic appears as constant resurfacing. A topic you engaged with once can follow you for days—war clips, political outrage, catastrophe forecasts—until your attention teaches the system to keep the wound open.
This is the part of the debate that’s easiest to miss: the system doesn’t need to persuade you that the world is dark. It only needs to keep you looking.
On platforms, the same dynamic appears as constant resurfacing. A topic you engaged with once can follow you for days—war clips, political outrage, catastrophe forecasts—until your attention teaches the system to keep the wound open.
This is the part of the debate that’s easiest to miss: the system doesn’t need to persuade you that the world is dark. It only needs to keep you looking.
Responsibility doesn’t require immersion
A common fear underpins compulsive checking: if I stop, I’m being irresponsible. That fear is understandable—and often exploited. The challenge is to separate civic responsibility from constant exposure.
The Reuters Institute’s data suggests many people are already making that separation, even if they don’t phrase it that way. Selective avoidance can be a sign of maturity: refusing to let the news product dictate one’s emotional life.
The question for readers is practical: how do you stay meaningfully informed without living inside the feed?
The Reuters Institute’s data suggests many people are already making that separation, even if they don’t phrase it that way. Selective avoidance can be a sign of maturity: refusing to let the news product dictate one’s emotional life.
The question for readers is practical: how do you stay meaningfully informed without living inside the feed?
Practical takeaways: build boundaries that respect attention
No single habit fixes a structural problem, but personal guardrails can reduce harm immediately:
- Choose intervals, not impulses. Read news at set times rather than whenever anxiety hits.
- Prefer summaries over streams. A daily briefing has edges; a feed does not.
- Turn off nonessential alerts. Reserve notifications for genuine emergencies or a small list of sources you trust.
- Separate “what happened” from “how people reacted.” Social media often blends reporting with performance.
- Notice topic loops. If one subject dominates your feed for days, it may be the algorithm, not reality, escalating it.
These are not retreat tactics. They’re focus tactics. Citizenship requires attention, not constant stimulation.
- Choose intervals, not impulses. Read news at set times rather than whenever anxiety hits.
- Prefer summaries over streams. A daily briefing has edges; a feed does not.
- Turn off nonessential alerts. Reserve notifications for genuine emergencies or a small list of sources you trust.
- Separate “what happened” from “how people reacted.” Social media often blends reporting with performance.
- Notice topic loops. If one subject dominates your feed for days, it may be the algorithm, not reality, escalating it.
These are not retreat tactics. They’re focus tactics. Citizenship requires attention, not constant stimulation.
Personal guardrails to reduce doomscrolling now
- ✓Choose intervals, not impulses
- ✓Prefer summaries over streams
- ✓Turn off nonessential alerts
- ✓Separate “what happened” from “how people reacted”
- ✓Notice topic loops and algorithmic repetition
What newsrooms and platforms could change—without dumbing down
A reader can change habits, but the deeper fix is structural. The public didn’t independently decide to consume news as an infinite scroll; the scroll was built.
Platform companies have the power to introduce friction, reduce notification abuse, and limit the amplification of repetitive distress. News organizations have the power to stop treating every update as a new “moment” and to invest in formats that help readers orient rather than react.
That does not mean softening reality or avoiding difficult subjects. It means restoring proportionality and agency.
Platform companies have the power to introduce friction, reduce notification abuse, and limit the amplification of repetitive distress. News organizations have the power to stop treating every update as a new “moment” and to invest in formats that help readers orient rather than react.
That does not mean softening reality or avoiding difficult subjects. It means restoring proportionality and agency.
Case study: the “slow news” impulse
The Reuters Institute’s discussion of avoidance has helped fuel interest in “slow news”—not as ignorance, but as curation. When 31% cite overload and 39% cite mood impact as reasons for avoidance, the market signal is obvious: readers want fewer pings and more meaning.
That’s a challenge to editorial ego. Many journalists believe more output equals more public service. Sometimes it does. Often it functions as self-competition inside a metrics system that rewards volume.
A healthier model would treat attention as a public good. It would be comfortable saying: here’s what matters today, here’s what changed, here’s what didn’t, and here’s when we’ll update you next.
That’s a challenge to editorial ego. Many journalists believe more output equals more public service. Sometimes it does. Often it functions as self-competition inside a metrics system that rewards volume.
A healthier model would treat attention as a public good. It would be comfortable saying: here’s what matters today, here’s what changed, here’s what didn’t, and here’s when we’ll update you next.
Key Insight
The crisis isn’t that urgent news exists—it’s that platforms and metrics turn urgency into an endless task. Restoring edges restores agency.
The crisis is real—but it’s not solvable by panic
The world contains genuine emergencies. Pretending otherwise is naive. Yet the public’s growing avoidance suggests another emergency: a news environment that makes engagement feel like harm.
The Reuters Institute’s record-high avoidance levels in 2024 and 2025 are not a verdict against journalism itself. They are a verdict against a particular mode of delivery—one that collapses context into content units and trains readers to confuse vigilance with wisdom.
Pew’s numbers underscore the structural nature of the shift. When 86% of adults get news via digital devices and 53% at least sometimes get it from social media, the dominant “news experience” is no longer a deliberate act. It’s ambient exposure shaped by recommendation systems, social reinforcement, and constant prompts.
A sensible response doesn’t romanticize the past or shame the reader. It asks for a more adult arrangement: news that respects finite attention, and citizens who refuse to outsource their nervous systems to feeds.
The point isn’t to stop caring. The point is to care in a way that can last.
The Reuters Institute’s record-high avoidance levels in 2024 and 2025 are not a verdict against journalism itself. They are a verdict against a particular mode of delivery—one that collapses context into content units and trains readers to confuse vigilance with wisdom.
Pew’s numbers underscore the structural nature of the shift. When 86% of adults get news via digital devices and 53% at least sometimes get it from social media, the dominant “news experience” is no longer a deliberate act. It’s ambient exposure shaped by recommendation systems, social reinforcement, and constant prompts.
A sensible response doesn’t romanticize the past or shame the reader. It asks for a more adult arrangement: news that respects finite attention, and citizens who refuse to outsource their nervous systems to feeds.
The point isn’t to stop caring. The point is to care in a way that can last.
T
About the Author
TheMurrow Editorial is a writer for TheMurrow covering opinion.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is doomscrolling a real psychological condition?
Doomscrolling is widely discussed as a behavior pattern, not a formal diagnosis. Harvard Health describes it as prolonged scrolling through distressing content and notes potential mental and physical ripple effects. Many experts prefer terms like compulsive or problematic use unless clinical criteria for addiction are met.
Are people actually avoiding the news more than before?
Yes. The Reuters Institute’s Digital News Report 2024 found about 39% of respondents sometimes or often avoid the news (up from 36% in 2023 and 29% in 2017). The Digital News Report 2025 puts it at 40%, tied for the highest level recorded.
Why do people say they avoid the news?
In 2025 summaries from the Reuters Institute, common reasons include negative effects on mood (39%), burnout/overload (31%), too much war/conflict (30%), and too much politics (29%). Those reasons suggest avoidance is often about self-protection and fatigue, not indifference.
Isn’t avoiding the news irresponsible?
Not necessarily. Reuters Institute research distinguishes between “consistent avoiders” and “selective avoiders.” Many selective avoiders still care about public life but avoid overload or emotionally damaging presentation. A bounded, intentional news routine can support civic awareness better than constant, anxious checking.
How has social media changed what a “headline” is?
On platforms, the headline becomes a content unit—caption, thumbnail, short video, creator commentary, or push alert—optimized for engagement. Pew reports 53% of U.S. adults at least sometimes get news from social media, meaning a large portion of “news” is experienced through algorithmic distribution rather than editorial packaging.
What’s the most practical way to stop doomscrolling without being uninformed?
Replace impulse-checking with scheduled intake and bounded formats. Turn off nonessential push alerts, read at set times, and prioritize summaries that offer context. The goal isn’t ignorance; it’s reclaiming agency so the news serves understanding rather than feeding a loop of anxiety and overload.
