
[ad_1]
Research from the Reuters Institute at the University of Oxford shows that the number of people around the world avoiding the news is at an all-time high. As mentioned earlier, 39% of respondents from 47 countries said they actively avoid the news sometimes or often, compared to 29% of study participants in 2017.
Some 46% of people responded that they were very or extremely interested in the news, compared with 63% in 2017, the BBC reported.
The study’s lead author Nick Njuman He believes the decline in news interest is related to “particularly difficult events in the past few years”, including the wars in Ukraine and Palestine.
“Having lived through pandemics and wars, it’s a natural reaction for people to avoid the news, either to protect their mental health or just to get on with life,” Newman explains.
He noted that those who selectively avoid the news do so because they feel “powerless” in the face of major world events.
Newman added that some people feel overwhelmed and confused by the amount of news, while others are fed up with politics.
Confidence in the news remained at its usual 40%, increasing only 4% during the COVID-19 pandemic.
When it comes to news sources, about 73% of respondents said they read news on the Internet, 50% said they read news through television, and 14% said they read news through print media.
As far as social networks are concerned, access to the Facebook platform is most important for the largest proportion of respondents, although the platform has been in steady decline over a long period of time, while YouTube and WhatsApp are also important sources of news.
Interestingly, TikTok is on the rise, ahead of Platform X for the first time, with 13% and 10% of users respectively.
The survey showed widespread skepticism about the potential of using AI for news writing, especially for more serious stories such as politics or war.
Newman said it would be easier to use artificial BroadCast Unitedligence to help with transcription and translation.
The survey was conducted in January and February this year and covered 94,943 respondents in 47 countries.
[ad_2]
Source link