One of the enduring images from the Second World War was that of families gathered around the wireless (as radios were then known) for the latest news from the front.
Even good news from the fighting arenas couldn’t have been called cheery.
The radio was more than a reminder that the world was in a deadly pickle.
With strict rationing of foods and most families hoping for the safe return of a loved one, news out of the radio was largely taken personally.
No doubt some people were moved to say: “Turn that bloody thing off, it’s not helping.”
And no doubt others would linger when the bulletin was finished, anxiously wishing there was more news.
But if anyone had clung to the radio around the clock, desperate for the next bulletin (let’s call it a fix) they would have been dragged to the hospital and given a shot of the good stuff.
Fast forward to the 24-hour news cycle
The transistor radio wasn’t invented until just after the war, and there wasn’t an endless stream of news bulletins to which you could glue yourself.
Now, courtesy of our phones, we carry in our pockets the world as it breaks up in real time. If only we care to look.
This is the news today: Floods, fires, droughts and other manifestations of climate change, the threat of nuclear war, various small-scale wars and refugee crises we don’t pay much attention to, the pandemic (which is still a thing), the economy in first gear and maybe dropping into reverse – and the usual car crashes and violent crime.
There has been much written about the danger that news coverage can pose to one’s mental health.
In 2016, Slate called for an end to a rather macabre annual tradition where broadcaster MSNBC replayed “the complete three-and-a-half hours of unedited, uninterrupted, untouched live footage of NBC’s Today show coverage of the attacks of September 11, 2001″.
These broadcasts were great for ratings, but not so great for your emotional and psychological wellbeing.
“Over the past 15 years,” Slate wrote, “a small but valuable body of psychiatric research has revealed that watching these events play out on television seems to have played a role in the presence of clinically significant psychological distress related to 9/11.”
In March 2020, at the very beginning of the pandemic, the American Psychological Association published an article: Too Much Coronavirus Media Exposure May Be Bad for Your Health.
This was tricky. People needed advice about how to protect themselves against the coronavirus, which was complicated by the fact that our understanding of COVID-19 evolved over time. It’s still evolving.
In January, Deakin researchers published a paper: From Doom-Scrolling to News Avoidance: Limiting news as a wellbeing strategy during COVID lockdown.
Doom-scrolling refers to the obsessive or at least habitual checking one’s smartphone for the latest catastrophic update. There’s anxiety obviously playing out for doom-scrollers.
An obvious question
Is it the news itself that drives this obsession? Or is it a symptom of a pre-existing anxiety? Or do they feed on one another?
The Slate article asked the same question: “The directionality of how television affects trauma remains unclear (and 9/11 is not the only example),” the author wrote.
“Do those who repeatedly watched images of bodies falling from burning buildings develop PTSD because of the repeat exposures, or were the most PTSD-prone simply more likely to, for whatever reason, flock toward those images and obsessively watch them?
“Social scientists still aren’t sure, but it seems that the televised nature of the attacks certainly didn’t help.”
Who is most at risk?
A new study, from advertising and brand strategy academics, found that people with an obsessive urge to constantly check the news “are more likely to suffer from stress, anxiety, as well as physical ill-health”.
That sounds reasonable. Chasing misery is about the easiest game of catch you can find. And surely people with truly obsessive urges are carrying some measure of anxiety and stress wherever they go, whether a news broadcast is playing nearby or not.
How many such people are there? And is their news obsession their only problem in life? Do they look at themselves in the mirror and think: If only Fox News would leave me alone, I’d be OK.
The new study, from the College of Media and Communication at Texas Tech University, gives us an idea as to how many fretful news addicts there are in the US – and how many might be unwell to begin with.
The researchers, led by Bryan McLaughlin, associate professor of advertising at the university, analysed data from an online survey of 1100 US adults.
Participants were asked about the extent to which they agreed with statements like:
- “I become so absorbed in the news that I forget the world around me”
- “My mind is frequently occupied with thoughts about the news”
- “I find it difficult to stop reading or watching the news”
- “I often do not pay attention at school or work because I am reading or watching the news.”
Respondents were also asked about how often they experienced feelings of stress and anxiety, as well as physical ailments such as fatigue, physical pain, poor concentration, and gastrointestinal issues.
The results revealed that 16.5 per cent of people surveyed showed signs of ‘severely problematic’ news consumption.
Now, consider this, from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare: “Anxiety disorders … are the most prevalent type of disorder, affecting one in six (16.8 per cent or 3.3 million) Australians.”
Of course, the new study involved US participants, and the AIHW figures relate to Australians. But it’s a little uncanny in how they match up.
The researchers’ analysis
The Texan researchers described problematic news consumption as an addiction.
Such individuals, they say, frequently became so immersed and personally invested in news stories that the stories dominated the individual’s waking thoughts, disrupted time with family and friends, made it difficult to focus on school or work, and contributed to restlessness and an inability to sleep.
“Witnessing these events unfold in the news can bring about a constant state of high alert in some people, kicking their surveillance motives into overdrive and making the world seem like a dark and dangerous place,” Dr McLaughlin said.
“For these individuals, a vicious cycle can develop in which, rather than tuning out, they become drawn further in, obsessing over the news and checking for updates around the clock to alleviate their emotional distress. But it doesn’t help, and the more they check the news, the more it begins to interfere with other aspects of their lives.”
The ‘chicken and egg’ question remains in play
The researchers say that “perhaps not surprisingly, people with higher levels of problematic news consumption were significantly more likely to experience mental and physical ill-being than those with lower levels, even when controlling for demographics, personality traits, and overall news use”.
When asked how frequently survey participants experienced mental health or physical illness symptoms over the past month, results show:
- 73.6 per cent of those recognised to have severe levels of problematic news consumption reported experiencing mental ill-being “quite a bit” or “very much” – while frequent symptoms were only reported by 8 per cent of all other study participants
- 61 per cent of those with severe levels of problematic news consumption reported experiencing physical ill-being “quite a bit” or “very much” compared to only 6.1 per cent for all other study participants.
What’s the solution?
Dr McLaughlin suggests there is a need for “focused media literacy campaigns to help people develop a healthier relationship with the news”.
But who would be targeted in these campaigns?
Again, it’s tricky. We all become vulnerable when there’s a story in play that directly affects us, such as the pandemic, or widespread floods, and there’s stuff we need to know. We’re burdened by the dark reality, and the news reminds us of that reality.
But, if the new study’s figures hold up, we can reasonably assume that most of us tend to know when we’ve had enough.
Most people pretty quickly got sick of seeing the New York towers bursting into flames and collapsing – that damned footage playing over and over – and we took time to look away.
Maybe an education campaign in ‘media literacy’ might be a good idea, especially for our kids. But would a campaign really help clinically anxious teens or adults? The fervent doom scrollers?
Dr McLaughlin is somewhat upbeat on this score: “In the case of problematic news consumption, research has shown that individuals may decide to stop, or at least dramatically reduce, their news consumption if they perceive it is having adverse effects on their mental health.”
That would make a good news story.
