Too much political news? Many Americans feel the need to limit their consumption of political news, AP-NORC/USAFacts poll finds

NEW YORK (AP) — When her husband turns on the television to hear news about the upcoming presidential election, it’s often Lori Johnson Malveaux’s cue to leave the room.

It can get too intense. Often, she’ll watch a movie on Hallmark Channel or BET in front of a TV in another room. She wants something comforting and entertaining. And for that, she has company.

While about half of Americans say they follow political news “extremely” or “very” closely, about 6 in 10 say they have to limit the amount of information they consume about government and politics to avoid feeling overloaded or fatigued, according to a new survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and USAFacts.

Make no mistake: Malveaux intends to vote. She still does. “I’m getting to the point where I don’t want to hear any more speeches,” she said.

The 54-year-old Democrat said she is particularly bothered when she hears people on the news tell her that something she saw with her own eyes — like the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol — didn’t actually happen.

“I feel like I’m being manipulated. That’s how you could put it,” she said.

Caleb Pack, 23, a Republican from Ardmore, Oklahoma, who works in the IT industry, tries to stay informed through his phone’s news feed, which is filled with sources including CNN, Fox News, the Wall Street Journal and the Associated Press.

But sometimes, Pack said, it feels like a bombing raid.

“It’s good to know what’s going on, but both sides are a little extreme,” he said. “It feels like it’s a topic of conversation everywhere, and it’s hard to escape it.”

Media fatigue is not a new phenomenon. A Pew Research Center survey conducted in late 2019 found that about two in three Americans felt exhausted by the amount of information available, about the same as a survey conducted in early 2018. During the 2016 presidential campaign, about 6 in 10 people felt overloaded by campaign information.

But this phenomenon can be particularly acute when it comes to political news. The AP-NORC/USAFacts poll found that half of Americans feel the need to limit their consumption of news about crime or conflict abroad, while only about 4 in 10 limit their consumption of news about the economy and jobs.

It’s easy to understand, with television channels like CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC full of political discussion and a wide range of political information online, sometimes complicated by misinformation.

“There’s an overabundance of information,” said Richard Coffin, director of research and advocacy for USAFacts, “and people have a hard time determining what’s true and what’s not.”

In the AP-NORC poll, about 6 in 10 men said they follow election and political news “very” closely, compared with about half of women. For all types of news, not just politics, women are more likely than men to say they have to limit their media consumption, the survey found.

White adults are also more likely than black or Hispanic adults to say they need to limit media consumption about politics, the poll found.

Kaleb Aravzo, 19, a Democrat, gets his news by listening to National Public Radio in the mornings at his home in Logan, Utah. Too much politics, especially on social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram, can trigger anxiety and depression.

“If this photo comes up on my page when I’m on social media, I’ll just let it scroll by.”

___

Sanders reported from Washington. David Bauder writes about media for the AP. Follow him on http://x.com/dbauder.

The AP poll was conducted July 29-Aug. 8, 2024, among 1,019 adults from a sample drawn from NORC’s AmeriSpeak probability panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.0 percentage points.