News addiction: the signs, the research, and how to cut back

Summary: News addiction is an informal name for a pattern researchers measure as problematic news consumption: Getting absorbed in the news, thinking about it when you aren't reading it, losing control of how much you read, and letting it crowd out work, sleep, and family. People with the most severe form report far worse mental and physical health, and the research points toward a different relationship with the news rather than quitting it.

Most compulsive checking starts with the person holding the phone. Researchers Maxi Heitmayer and Saadi Lahlou gave 37 people wearable cameras and recorded 1,130 smartphone interactions in daily life. 89% of those interactions were started by the user, with no notification involved. The habit lives in routines people build over time, and news is one of the easiest things to build a checking routine around: It never runs out, it changes without warning, and checking it feels like the responsible thing to do.

Is news addiction real?

Not as a diagnosis. The American Psychiatric Association's manual, the DSM-5-TR, names gambling disorder as the only behavioral addiction and lists internet gaming disorder among conditions that need more research. News appears in neither place.

What researchers have done is measure the pattern. In 2022, Bryan McLaughlin, Melissa Gotlieb, and Devin Mills of Texas Tech University published a scale for what they call problematic news consumption. It covers five dimensions: Getting absorbed in the news, being preoccupied by it, turning to more news to manage the stress the news caused, failing to limit how much you read, and letting news interfere with the rest of life. Statements on the scale describe losing track of your surroundings while following the news and paying less attention at work or school because of it.

In their online survey of 1,100 US adults, 16.5% fell into the most severe group. Of those, 73.6% reported mental ill-being "quite a bit" or "very much," against 8% of everyone else, and 61% reported physical ill-being at that level, against 6.1% of everyone else. The gap held after the researchers accounted for demographics, personality traits, and overall news use.

The same team then ran a two-wave survey to test the result. The severe group shrank to 7.5% of the sample. In the model that tracked people over time, the severe group still showed worse mental health, and the link to worse physical health didn't hold up in the replication. Both studies are surveys, so neither can show that news habits cause poor health, and people who feel unwell may also turn to the news more.

Why the news is easy to get hooked on

It never ends. A newspaper has a back page. A feed, a live blog, and a 24-hour channel always have one more update, so you have to decide to stop against the pull of the format, which is the pattern behind doomscrolling.

It changes without warning. Most checks turn up nothing new, and every so often something big has happened. Unpredictable payoffs build the most stubborn habits, which is the same design that keeps people at a slot machine.

It calms worry, briefly. One of the five dimensions on the scale is using more news to manage the stress the news caused. A check can settle a worry for a minute and then hand you a new one, which is how news anxiety and compulsive checking feed each other.

It looks like a virtue. Hours of gaming look like a problem to the people around you. Hours of news look like being informed, so the habit can grow for a long time before anyone, including the reader, calls it a problem.

Signs of news addiction

• You lose track of where you are. You look up from the news and the coffee's cold or the stop is behind you.

• The news follows you. Stories run through your head during conversations, at work, and in bed.

• Checking to calm down leaves you worse. You open the news to settle a worry, and you close it with two new ones.

• Stopping is harder than starting. You meant to read one story, and the session ran long again.

• Other things give way. Work, school, sleep, or time with family regularly lose out to the news.

Isn't following the news closely a good thing?

Often it is. Reporters, analysts, and traders read news all day as their job, and plenty of people follow an election or a war closely because the outcome affects them. Calling every heavy reader an addict would treat engagement as a disorder, and that's a real risk with the word. The label is informal, and the replication cut the severe group by more than half, so nobody knows yet how common the pattern is.

The researchers' own answer avoids the trap. Their measure doesn't count hours, and the health gap held after they accounted for how much news people consumed. What set the severe group apart was the relationship: Whether they could stop, whether the news followed them around, and whether it crowded out the rest of life. McLaughlin pointed out that treatment for compulsive behaviors usually centers on stopping the behavior entirely, which doesn't fit something worth keeping like the news. The goal he set out is a healthier relationship with the news, and that means changing the habit around the reading.

How to cut back without quitting the news

These work with any source: A newspaper, a radio bulletin, a podcast, or a feed.

1. Count your checks for two days. Tally every time you open a news app, site, or feed. A tally makes the automatic checks visible, and visible checks are easier to skip.

2. Move the cue. Most checks start with you, so remove what starts them: Take news apps off the home screen, sign out of news sites in your browser, and leave the phone in another room during meals.

3. Set reading windows with an end. Pick one or two times a day and a source that finishes, like a paper, a newsletter, or a broadcast. Our news diet plan walks through a week of it.

4. Swap the calming check. When you reach for the news to settle a worry, do something that ends: A walk, a call, or writing the worry down to look at later.

5. Turn off breaking alerts. Alerts teach you that something new could be waiting at any moment, and that's the expectation that drives the checking.

6. Get help when you can't cut back. If the habit is hurting your sleep, work, or relationships and you can't change it alone, a doctor or licensed therapist can help.

How informed.now fits in

informed.now is a news research company, and our weekday morning brief is built to be read once and finished. It covers the stories that change the most lives, arrives at a morning time you choose, and ends after the last story. Our methodology explains how we pick what's in it.

The habit behind the hours

The most useful finding in the research on news addiction is the one about volume. The health gap held after accounting for how much news people consumed, which puts the problem in the habit around the reading: The checks nobody decided to make, the stories that follow a reader to bed, and the session that never ends. A reader can follow the news closely and keep all three under control, and a reader who changes those three habits may not need to cut the hours at all.