Steep decline in public trust in traditional news sources – The most important social media platform for news is still Facebook, although it is in long-term decline.
More and more people are turning their backs on the news, describing it as "depressing", "cynical" and "boring", according to a global study.
Nearly 4 in 10 globally (39%) said they sometimes or often deliberately avoid the news, compared with 29% in 2017, according to the report by Oxford University's Reuters Institute, with the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East to have played a decisive role in this desire.
A total of 94.943 adults in 47 countries were polled by YouGov in January and February for this year's Digital News Report. The report found that the election has increased interest in news in a few countries, including the United States, although the overall trend remains steadily downward.
In the UK, interest in news has almost halved since 2015.
"The news agenda has obviously been particularly difficult in recent years," the report's lead author Nic Newman told BBC News.
"You've had the pandemic [and] the wars, so it's a pretty normal reaction for people to turn away from the news, either to protect their mental health or just to get on with the rest of their lives."
Mr Newman said those who choose to selectively avoid the news often do so because they feel "weak".
"These are people who feel they have no say in anything important that happens in the world," he said.
Some people feel increasingly overwhelmed and confused by the volume of news, while others feel tired of politics, he added. Meanwhile, trust in the news remains steady at 40%, but is still 4% lower overall than it was at the height of the coronavirus pandemic, the survey notes.
TikTok is displacing Twitter
The report also found that audiences for traditional news sources (television and print) have declined drastically over the past decade, with younger people preferring to get their news online or through social media.
In the UK, almost three-quarters (3%) said they get their news online, compared to 4% from TV and just 73% from print sources.
The most important social media platform for news is still Facebook, although it is in long-term decline.
YouTube and WhatsApp remain important sources of news for many, while TikTok is on the rise and has now overtaken X (formerly Twitter) for the first time.
13% of people use the video sharing app for news, compared to 10% who use X. The figure for TikTok is even higher for 18-24 year olds globally at 23%.
Source: skai.gr
