A bombing overseas, a mass tragedy at home and a new international crisis—all before breakfast. This is not exactly the peaceful morning anyone hopes for. Yet, this is the reality of living in a world where news no longer waits for people to seek it out; it finds them, follows them and shapes how they think and feel long before they even leave the house.
The press shapes perception of reality:
The modern news cycle does not only report events, but it also surrounds the people. With podcasts, online news platforms and social media feeds that refresh by the second, the news is no longer confined to a single medium.
Psychologists describe this as “simmering in a soup of news.” It follows people into bed, classrooms, relationships and quiet spaces where minds are supposed to be resting.
When information becomes constant, it becomes powerful. Research from BBC shows that news coverage does not just inform readers, it also rewires how they interpret the world. People tend to overestimate dangers that receive heavy media attention and underestimate those that do not.
“I’m definitely more stressed about the future,” junior Keishi Weerackoon said. “After seeing certain things online, especially about medicine, I always think ahead for ‘Oh when I’m 30, I have to do this kind of stuff to make sure that I don’t just drop dead because I didn’t have enough money to pay for something.’”
Cancer coverage, for example, often highlights rare but dramatic cases, leading viewers to misjudge which cancers are most common or most deadly.
Heavy news consumers were more likely to hold warped beliefs about cancer risks, mirroring the distortions in media coverage itself.
This pattern extends beyond health. News influences how viewers interact with politics and their community.
“The news mainly focuses on the negative, and they don’t really put out the positives of life,” senior Kaylyn Hidalgo said. “So I feel like I really have a bad perception of the world [and] where it’s going, especially this country.”
The mechanism behind this is simple: the brain is wired to pay attention to threats. News outlets (especially digital ones) rely on that instinct because stories that evoke fear or urgency attract more clicks and shares. Over time, this repeated exposure to negative headlines trains the brain to expect danger everywhere, making the world appear darker than it actually is.
The press affects emotions:
The psychological effects of constant news exposure are becoming harder to ignore. APA Studies from the early months of the pandemic found that the more frequently people sought out COVID-19 updates, the more likely they were to report emotional distress (media overload).
“It really does put a heavy weight on our mental state, because we’re hearing a bunch of things and not many people go research about it,” Hidalgo said.
By June 2020, 83% of Americans said they felt stressed about the nation’s future as they tried to process overlapping crises: economic turmoil, racial injustice and the pandemic.
And it is not just stress, it is a shift in how people process the world. Psychologists describe a phenomenon called learned helplessness, where repeated exposure to uncontrollable negative events causes people to feel powerless.
“[Negative news headlines] really set a bad mood for the rest of my day because I feel like I just lose hope in the world,” Hidalgo said.
Digital newsfeeds, filled with crises readers cannot personally fix, create the perfect conditions for this mindset to flourish. The more they scroll, the more they feel that events are happening to them, rather than around them.
“Sometimes I’ll see bad headlines and have to remind myself that these are actual people experiencing this, or this is an actual cause that will affect me at some point,” Weerackoon said.
This creates a positive feedback loop: the more helpless readers feel, the more they seek information to gain a sense of control. The more information they consume, the more overwhelmed they become.
And because algorithms prioritize content similar to what viewers have already clicked on, feeds become increasingly filled with the very stories that heighten anxiety.
However, one can combat this helplessness by taking a moment to question what they are seeing. Is this backed up by evidence? Is it biased? A key way to avoid the suffocation of the press is to question the grounds it stands on.
“[The news] makes me more critical in what I learn,” senior Ved Mahesh said. “I used to take things at face value, but [now] I always try to research a little more on [news] to see if what I’m getting told is really true and if the stats are there to back it up.”
The climate crisis:
Few topics illustrate the power of the press—and the consequences of its emotional weight—as clearly as climate change. It is an ongoing crisis that becomes visible to most people only through social media coverage or news outlets. Hence, the way climate stories are framed can dramatically influence how people respond. For example, political parties will often shift focus from the scientific aspect of the issue and how it affects everyone to how their party is solving the problem or how the other is worsening it.
This clouds the real issue of climate change by pointing fingers, and thus making it harder for people to come together to find a solution.
“I think that when climate change is brought up, it often becomes an abstract thought,” AP Environmental Science teacher Ashley Camden said. “[So] people don’t know what they can do—or understand what would need to happen—to change a lot of the outcomes that we’re experiencing.”
This is another case of learned helplessness; when the news miscommunicates such a crucial problem in the world, it numbs its audience to the impact and thus the solutions available to mitigate it.
For example, some coverage emphasizes catastrophe, leaving audiences overwhelmed and paralyzed. Other stories highlight solutions, innovation and resilience which can inspire rather than scare.
Unfortunately for many, the former is more prominent in the press.
For example, articles like “How the Planet Fared in 2025—the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” from Grist.org contains titles such as “A firestorm consumes Los Angeles,” “Trump takes a hatchet to environmental regulations” and “Extreme flooding is here to stay.” These articles, predominantly negative in nature, are the wide majority of what people consume on a daily basis.
This is due to the fact that bad news garners more attention towards news outlets, which is often the objective of the press—to gather attention and influence, rather than inform.
“[The news] just wants to polarize everything, to further their own agendas,” Mahesh said. “Everyone wants to run the world their way but no one has enough power to do so.”
This lack of focus on the facts, solutions and good news leaves the young generation feeling unhopeful for the future of the planet, or worse, not feeling anything towards it at all.
“The future of the planet has a very negative undertone because of the sensationalization of news,” Camden said. “I don’t think there’s enough emphasis on what good things people are doing. [For example] they’re researching with algae beads, microplastics, and alternative containers.”
There are many advancements in environmental protection and conservation despite not being displayed on the latest news headlines. Camden makes an effort to inform her students on these advancements and solutions in class, especially when covering a typically negative unit such as fossil fuels.
“I try to empower while educating and tell my students, ‘Here are the problems, I need you to go out and figure out the solutions,’” Camden said. “[I] let them know we need an alternative to plastics. ‘Can you be the one who comes up with that?’”
Why no one can look away:
If the news makes people anxious, stressed and sometimes hopeless, why do they keep consuming it?
Part of the answer lies in human psychology. People are drawn to repetition. When they see the same headline over and over, they begin to view it as more familiar and therefore trustworthy—even if it is misleading.
“People find commonalities, so after seeing bad stuff online I would find behaviors or stuff said in the news or headlines that [matched up],” Weerackoon said.
The concept of confirmation bias explains how people latch onto news that aligns with their pre-existing beliefs on certain topics regardless if the news is trustworthy or not.
“[When] people look at the news, they only look at one side so it’s not even educating themselves,” freshman Anna McNeil said. “It’s just deepening their personal opinion because they’re cherry-picking the topics that back themselves up.”
Another factor is social media. On platforms like X (Twitter), ideas spread not because they are accurate, but because they are shared often and by many sources. The more often someone sees a claim, the more likely they are to adopt it. This creates a sense of urgency around certain issues and indifference toward others, depending on what the algorithm decides to amplify.
In the end, the news will always be a part of students’ lives, but the way that consumers engage with it is still theirs to shape.
As headlines grow louder and crises stack on top of each other, people are left navigating a world that feels heavier than ever. Understanding how the news influences thoughts and emotions gives people a chance to step back and breathe.
And in a moment when issues like climate change demand clarity rather than exhaustion, Weerackoon believes that learning to face news without being consumed by it may be one of the most important skills readers have.
“I love the press, I love people having the freedom of speech and being able to say whatever they want no matter how wrong or crazy,” Weerackoon said. “It would just be nice to see more equal opinions and perspectives within the media and [ourselves].”
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