The negative impact on mood, the main reason people avoid consuming news
Women and people over the age of 55 (in countries in the Global North) are the groups most likely to avoid the news for emotional reasons, according to a study by the University
School of Communication Fernanda Novoa and Javier Serrano, authors of the study
09 | 04 | 2026
The negative impact on mood caused by the news or the perception of information overload leads to increased avoidance behaviors in news consumption. Researchers at the School of Communication at the University of Navarra have published a study examining why more and more people are deliberately stopping their news consumption.
The work, authored by Javier Serrano and María Fernanda Novoa, analyzes data more than 16,000 people in eight countries across different hemispheres to understand what drives this intentional avoidance and to what extent emotions play a central role in this rejection.
The study uses data Reuters Institute’s 2022 Digital News Report, with a sample 16,691 participants from Australia, Canada, Denmark, and Spain (the Global North) and Brazil, Chile, India, and South Africa (the Global South). The results show that emotional factors are the most decisive in explaining news avoidance, surpassing motivational factors—such as distrust of the media or lack of time—and cognitive factors—such as difficulty understanding the information.
The most commonly cited emotional reasons are that "the news has a negative effect on my mood," that "I'm overwhelmed by the sheer volume of news," or that "I don't feel like I can do anything with the information." "When people experience negative emotions or feel overwhelmed by information, they increase their avoidance behavior," notes Serrano-Puche, a professor in department Public Communication the University of Navarra.
The research included in the book *The Handbook of Journalism and Emotions: Theory, Production, Content, and Responses* ( Wiley), a volume that offers a comparative and cross-cultural perspective on news consumption, featuring analyses by nearly 60 researchers from every continent.
Avoiding the news undermines the foundation of democracy
The sociodemographic analysis reveals that women experience negative emotions, information fatigue, or a sense of news overload more frequently than men in all the countries studied. Differences are also observed based on age: in the Global North, those over 55 are the group likely to avoid the news for emotional reasons, while in the Global South this phenomenon is more pronounced among young adults aged 25 to 34.
The subject media also influences avoidance behavior. Offline media consumption—television, radio, print media—is associated with lower levels of news avoidance in countries such as Spain, Canada, Australia, and Chile. In contrast, social media use does not necessarily increase the likelihood of avoiding the news, except in South Africa. Political ideology also plays a more decisive role in the Global South and in Spain, although there is no patron saint that holds true across all countries.
The authors warn that news avoidance is not merely an individual phenomenon, but one that undermines the foundation upon which civic participation in a democracy rests. "As the media loses its audience, democracy loses the informed base it needs for an engaged citizenry," the work concludes.
