In the digital world, self-nudging aims to empower people to be citizen “choice architects” by designing their informational environments in ways that work best for them and that constrain their activities in beneficial ways. We can, for instance, remove distracting and irresistible notifications. We may set specific times in which messages can be received, thereby creating pockets of time for concentrated work or socialising. Self-nudging can also help us take control of our digital default settings, for instance, by restricting the use of our personal data for purposes of targeted advertisement.

Critical ignoring is the ability to choose what to ignore and where to invest one’s limited attentional capacities. Critical ignoring is more than just not paying attention – it’s about practising mindful and healthy habits in the face of information overabundance.

First, the digital world contains more information than the world’s libraries combined. Much of it comes from unvetted sources and lacks reliable indicators of trustworthiness.

These platforms work overtime to hijack our attention by purveying information that arouses curiosity, outrage, or anger

I actively avoid news about politics as it frustrates me. It makes me feel small and no matter what my views it won’t make any difference at all to what goes on in the country or world, so there is no point listening to it.

Most often, younger audiences (under 35) say the news has a negative effect on their mood (34%) and, most recently, that there is too much news coverage of topics like politics or Coronavirus (39%).

podcasts

And while 25–34s have largely embraced many of the same networks as social natives in their daily lives and news habits, they have remained much more loyal to Facebook (9pp higher for news than social natives) – the network this cohort largely grew up with – and have been slower to move to new networks like TikTok (5pp lower for news than social natives)

Use of TikTok for news

young people’

In 2019, the Digital News Report looked at how young people get their news,1 finding stark differences in news consumption and behaviours among younger people, including a greater reliance on digital and social media and a weaker identification with and loyalty to news brands compared with older groups. Three years later, we now turn our attention to how young people’s news habits and attitudes have changed amid rising concerns about news distrust and avoidance, increasing public attention to social issues such as climate change and social justice, and the growth of newer platforms such as TikTok and Telegram.