New survey shows more Swiss are avoiding the news

Overwhelmed by the flood of information

More Swiss avoid news

More than 2,000 Swiss were surveyed about their news consumption. The results show that more than 35% of Swiss people have at least temporarily given up on the news.

South DakotaSwiss sending agencies

More and more Swiss are actively avoiding the news. A new report shows that 36% of Swiss people do not watch the news at least temporarily.

That’s three percentage points higher than last year, according to a national report published on Monday by Reuters Digital News. Compared with 2019, before the pandemic, it’s up ten percentage points. The Swiss data was collected by the Center for Public and Social Research (Fög) at the University of Zurich.

Less educated Swiss are more likely to avoid the news than those with medium or high education. The proportion of so-called “news avoiders” is also higher among women (39%) than men (33%).

Reason: Large amount of information

There are also differences by age: about a third of those under 25 and over 55 say they often or occasionally avoid the news, with the proportion even higher among those under 25 and over 55. One important reason for avoiding the news is the sheer volume of information available, the report said.

In the long term, Swiss people’s interest in news is also declining. In 2024, 48% of respondents said they were very interested in news. This is two percentage points higher than in 2023, but 11 percentage points lower than in 2016.

The Digital News Report documents various aspects of media use annually based on representative population surveys in several countries. More than 2,000 people were surveyed in Switzerland. The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford is responsible for this project.