Your brain’s wiring is being exploited for money.
Sensationalism, a journalistic style meant to appeal to emotion while sometimes sacrificing accuracy, has become integral to news outlets’ competitiveness in the commercialized digital environment, according to Bouchra Arbaoui’s 2020 televised news coverage study. The reason for this shift from informational to sensational is based in neuroscience and psychology. In Kristen Meinzer’s November 2024 interview with psychologist Dr. Adam S. Anderson, Anderson attributes the addictive nature of news media to its exploitation of human curiosity; novel or horrific images the news often shows release dopamine, a hormone linked to pleasure and reward, into the brain. In an era of journalism that prioritizes evoking emotions, avoiding the news may be the solution to preventing mental health issues for millions.
Dr. Kelly Kawar, high school English teacher, acknowledges the effectiveness sensationalist reporting has in capturing consumers, yet she believes overaccessibility to tragedy overwhelms many, causing them to avoid the news. Moreover, she feels that this accessibility creates an ethical expectation that people must develop an unrealistic level of awareness and empathy.
“We’re not stupid,” Kawar said. “We know what’s happening, and we know we’re being influenced [by the news]. But we accept it partly because we feel like we have no choice and partly because we [believe] there’s a responsibility that comes with technology and the accessibility it grants us. But we also know we can’t carry all of it, and that’s why people tune out.”
Kawar’s concern mirrors a shift to people avoiding news altogether. News avoidance, the intentional limiting of one’s news consumption, has increased over the last decade and reached new highs since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to annual Reuters Institute News Report surveys. The mental health of those who choose to stay news-engaged has been shown to be at risk, writes Dr. Dana Rose Garfin in a May 2020 psychological study. Garfin suggests that repeated media-based exposure to traumatic events is correlated with the development of mental illness, at times even more so than direct exposure. Loosely echoing the study’s findings, debate team member and avid news consumer Ezra McCullers ‘27 believes constant exposure to traumatic or violent media desensitizes viewers to human suffering.
“Early in the Ukrainian war [I saw] tons of pro-Ukraine movements [and representation],” McCullers said. “Now, there’s way less coverage because we’ve seen so much of it for so long. The more exposure we have to depictions of violence, the less we emotionally react. It’s like the Stalin quote: ‘one death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.’ When there’s so much death, it becomes hard to think about the actual people. And when both sides have so many tragic stories, it’s hard to empathize with either one.”
Although McCullers acknowledges some benefits to avoiding the news, he values political engagement and informing oneself through trusted sources, especially since media coverage, he believes, can be manipulated to serve other people’s agendas. He argues that political awareness is essential to exercising one’s civic power and that everyone has a responsibility to conduct their own research and form independent views.
“It’s important to stay engaged in politics and not let things change drastically with no response,” McCullers said. “Disconnecting is how extremist voices end up seeming like the majority. If moderates stay out, the extremes on both left and right take over. Moderates get attacked from both sides, and that drives them away, even though they’re the ones who could help keep politics healthy.”
Walker Paige ‘27, avid financial news consumer, believes in staying informed but stresses the importance of discerning between sensationalist and legitimate news sources. He believes intentional and informed news consumption acts as a balance between ignorance and emotional breakdown.
“Understanding what’s going on without becoming obsessive about it is key,” Paige said. “It’s about finding a balance between knowledge and overexposure. Over the past few years, all the divisions in our country [I’ve learned about through the news] have been really stressful, yet every time I think about tuning out, I remind myself that knowledge is power.”
Kawar feels that in order for people to balance media consumption with their mental well-being, they must ask themselves what they hope to gain from the news. She believes that even the highest quality journalism presents limitations preventing absolute truth from ever being communicated.
“If I go [to watch news] expecting it to give me the ‘real reality,’ I’m already deluding myself,” Kawar said. “[Inherently], people turn to the news because they’re longing for connection with others or their own humanity. But media isn’t where that comes from. Real connection comes from talking to people face-to-face, reading and thinking deeply. Those things take work. So I think we need to be more realistic about what needs we’re trying to meet when we turn to [the] news. Once we do that, the answer will usually be that news won’t help with those needs, and we need to find something else to spend our time on to get closer to the world we actually live in.”
