During the second Sydney lockdown in 2021, the person decided to take a break.
I was worried about the state of the world. She tells Guardian Australia that there is nothing she can do as an individual to change what is happening. It's too much.
She stopped watching the morning press conferences, stopped scrolling the headlines on her lunch break, and stopped following social media accounts that fed doom and gloom. One of the best decisions she ever made was filling her feed with things like the official Cincinnati Zoo page, which has lots of baby animals.
The anxiety is not there now.
Being completely unaware of the news of the day is difficult in the age of social media.
I just tune out because I think it’s better for my mental health
I am aware of what is happening in the world through social media. I'm not completely blind. I just don't watch it because I think it's better for my mental health.
An informed public is critical to a functioning democracy, and the news still happens whether or not we watch it. A number of Australians have begun avoiding the headlines in recent years. Heavy news use dropped from 69% in April 2020 to 51% in January 2021, while high interest in the news fell from 64% in 2016 to 52% in 2021. During the Pandemic, some people burned out on live blogs and daily death counts. There are more personal reasons for switch off.
Gen Fricker stopped actively consuming news during the Pandemic partly as a self-care tactic. There was more to her decision. As a long-time media personality and former Triple J presenter, Fricker had spent many years working in jobs where being across the news was mandatory. She felt that the level of engagement left her feeling hollow.
Your attention did not collapse. It was taken.
It was exhausting. At Triple J, you hear the news headlines every hour on the hour, and I don't think any normal person should hear the news that much. It didn't make me any happier to engage with this stuff, it made me feel more cynical and distrustful.
After leaving her job at ABC, she began to catch up on the big stories on a weekly basis. She describes her current state as smooth brain, just vibes.
Fricker wonders if the worth of being informed about certain stories is worth it.
I found out from my boyfriend that one of Nick Cave's sons died. It was terrible. She says she is sad for them, but does her knowledge change anything?
I have had stories written about my own personal tragedies, and all it did was make the situation worse. It doesn't offer us any comfort. It makes you feel isolated and out of place at a time when things are already bad.
Some Australians are abandoning the news because of mental health issues. Ash Fontana quit the news in 2006 in order to focus on himself.
Instead of reading the news, I can call someone in my friendship group or family. I can do more work if I don't read the news. He says he can do more exercise because he doesn't read the news.
I only read about things that I can actually affect, like how a local business is doing
His interest is smaller because of it. Fontana still pays attention to hyper-local stories about his city because he feels that it allows him to reorient his time towards that which is controllable and tractable.
He says that he only reads about things that he can affect, like how a local business is doing.
Fontana has been reading the news again since the war in Ukraine began. Even if you can't do anything about it right away, that story is important to everyone.
Mark Pearson is a professor of journalism and social media at a university.
News fatigue is reported as a phenomenon by psychologists. That should be done in moderation. We don't need to be informed 24/7.
Pearson advises us to bechoosy with our news sources and adjust our notification settings.
Say you are subscribed to five different social media platforms. Do you want them to constantly say that a news outlet has posted an update? You can probably do without that. It is enough to pick up on some news headlines once or twice a day.
I don’t want to be an uninformed voter. So I will do my own research but I pick the time and the sources
In the lead-up to hitting the polls, she believes she can mostly avoid the news and dip in from time to time when it's important.
I don't want to be an uneducated voter. She says that she will do her own research, but she picks the time and the sources. I just can't be bothered by it. I want to understand what the major parties stand for and how it will affect me or my electorate.
She doesn't feel like she missed any big stories since she scaled back her news consumption.
When there were hundreds of thousands of deaths in Italy, it really affected me. If you don't have the ability to control it or change it, then you just need to cut it from your life.
It was a positive decision for Gen Fricker to step away from the news.
I feel like people are going to think I'm stupid, but we have to do what we can to survive. Maybe it's cowardice. Cowards are happy.
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