The Nuance
The Neuroscience of News Overload
Information overload from news consumption is linked to both psychological disturbances and groupthink
Two hundred years ago — yesterday, in evolutionary terms — most people went days or even weeks without encountering news that did not involve their local community.
Today, the average person is bombarded with novel information about the wider world and its diverse (and often distressing) goings-on.
“Possibly the most prominent characteristic of news consumption today is the sheer amount of information that consumers are exposed to,” wrote the authors of a 2014 study in the journal Computers in Human Behavior. “A single Sunday edition of the New York Times today contains more information than typical 19th-century citizens faced in their entire lifetime.”
And it’s not only the volume of information that has exploded. “A second characteristic is the soaring number of sources that provide news via print, broadcast, and interactive modes, spewing text, pictures, and video at any time and in any place,” the study’s authors wrote. “As a result, we must cope with a surfeit of extra information, often unrelated to our interests and needs.”
