The data behind news fatigue, avoidance, and shifting habits across 48 countries
Now that you know the data — where do you stand?
Our quiz uses findings from these and other peer-reviewed studies to measure your personal news consumption across five research-backed dimensions.
Take the quiz — 3 min, free →YouGov online survey conducted in January/February 2025 across 48 markets (including Serbia for the first time). Samples use representative quotas for age, gender, region, and in some markets education and political orientation, weighted against census data. Ethics review by the University of Oxford Central University Research Ethics Committee.
Limitation: Online survey — excludes populations without internet access. Data from India, Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa are representative of younger English-speakers rather than the national population.
| Country | 2025 | Change since 2017 |
|---|---|---|
| 🇧🇬 Bulgaria | 63% | — |
| 🇹🇷 Turkey | 61% | — |
| 🇭🇷 Croatia | 61% | — |
| 🇬🇷 Greece | 60% | — |
| 🇬🇧 UK | 46% | +22pp |
| 🇺🇸 USA | ~43% | +14pp |
| 🇩🇪 Germany | ~37% | — |
| 🇫🇮 Finland | ~26% | — |
| 🇹🇼 Taiwan | 21% | — |
| 🇯🇵 Japan | 11% | — |
| Country | Trust |
|---|---|
| 🇫🇮 Finland | 69% |
| 🇩🇪 Germany | ~43% |
| 🇬🇧 UK | ~36% |
| 🇺🇸 USA | ~32% |
| 🇬🇷 Greece | 22% |
Overall trust has remained stable at 40% globally for three consecutive years.
If you feel overwhelmed by news, you share that experience with four in ten people worldwide. The data suggests this isn't a personal failing — it's a structural pattern driven by platform design, content volume, and the emotional weight of persistent crisis coverage.
The report identifies two distinct groups: "consistent avoiders" who have low interest in news overall, and "selective avoiders" who care about being informed but need to protect themselves from overload. Understanding which pattern fits you is a first step toward changing it.
While the Reuters report provides the global overview, the Pew Research Center offers the most detailed picture of the United States — where the trends are particularly striking.
Representative survey of 3,560 U.S. adults conducted December 2–8, 2025, via the American Trends Panel (ATP), Pew Research Center's probability-based panel. Weighted to match the U.S. adult population by demographics.
Strength: The ATP uses address-based sampling (not opt-in), giving it higher representativeness than most online panels.
| Age | Worn Out |
|---|---|
| 18–29 | 61% |
| 30–49 | 55% |
| 50–64 | 47% |
| 65+ | 38% |
| Year | % |
|---|---|
| 2016 | 51% |
| 2022 | 38% |
| 2026 | 16% |
The decline in active news following is one of the steepest measured by any survey — from majority behavior to a fringe habit in a decade.
Feeling overwhelmed by news is now the majority experience in the United States, especially for younger adults. The data suggests this isn't about caring less — most people still consider staying informed important. The gap between "wanting to know" and "not wanting to drown in it" defines the modern news consumer's dilemma.
If you've reduced your news intake and feel guilty about it, you're part of a trend that has reshaped American media habits more dramatically than any event since the rise of cable news.
The American experience is sharp, but not unique. A separate Pew study of eight Western European countries reveals how media trust is shaped by factors that go beyond politics.
Representative survey of 16,114 adults across Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and the UK, conducted October to December 2017.
Note: While these data are from 2017, they remain the most comprehensive cross-European study of the relationship between populist attitudes and media trust. The structural patterns identified — the north-south trust divide, the dominance of populism over ideology — have been confirmed by subsequent Reuters DNR data.
| Region | Countries | Trust Level |
|---|---|---|
| Northern Europe | Denmark, Sweden, Netherlands | High |
| Central Europe | Germany | Medium |
| Southern/Western Europe | France, UK, Spain, Italy | Low |
The gap between northern and southern Europe is not primarily about politics — it correlates more strongly with populist sentiment, media system structure, and the strength of public broadcasting.
Where you live shapes your relationship with news in ways you might not expect. A person in Finland who reports "medium trust" in news is expressing something very different from someone in Greece saying the same thing — the baselines differ dramatically.
This is one reason our quiz asks for your country: it lets us place your results in the context of your own media landscape, not a global average that may not apply to you.
Trust and avoidance tell us about attitudes. But what about behavior? A cross-national study of more than 28,000 Europeans reveals five distinct patterns of news consumption — and challenges a widespread assumption about what it means to be informed.
Published in The International Journal of Press/Politics (2021)
Cross-national survey analyzed using cluster analysis to identify naturally occurring consumer profiles. The study drew on data from the NEPOCS (News Exposure and Political Consequences) research network, covering more than 28,000 respondents in 17 European countries.
Key contribution: This is one of the first studies to empirically demonstrate that higher news consumption does not automatically translate to being better informed — the "hyperconsumer paradox."
Limitation: European sample only. The authors note that in a small number of countries (Norway, Sweden, Israel, Romania), Hyper Consumers were better informed, suggesting the effect is partly context-dependent.
In most of the 17 countries studied, Hyper News Consumers showed no knowledge advantage over more selective consumers. This challenges the intuitive assumption that "more news = better informed."
However, in Norway, Sweden, Israel, and Romania, Hyper Consumers were better informed. The researchers suggest this relates to media system characteristics — countries with strong public broadcasting and lower polarization may make heavy consumption more effective.
The key insight: it's not how much you consume, but how you consume it.
If you consume a lot of news and assume that makes you well-informed, this study offers an important reality check. In most countries, people who read fewer sources but choose them deliberately know just as much — or more — about current affairs.
This doesn't mean you should stop reading the news. It means the way you consume matters more than the volume. Intentional, selective consumption from trusted sources consistently outperforms broad, passive exposure.
Now that you know the data — where do you stand?
Our quiz uses findings from these and other peer-reviewed studies to measure your personal news consumption across five research-backed dimensions.
Take the quiz — 3 min, free →