Report “News avoidance in the UK remains high as lockdown restrictions are eased”

The report revisits previous research from the project UK COVID-19 news and information, looking to understand whether people are avoiding news during the coronavirus pandemic in the UK, based on a survey fielded from 16 July to 22 July.
Among its highlights:

• levels of news avoidance grew sharply in April and May (+10pp), and have broadly remained at high levels since then
• most of those that avoid news about COVID-19 say it is because ‘it has a bad effect on my mood’

The report is the eighth Factsheet, part of the UK COVID-19 news and information project that analyses how the British public navigates information and misinformation about coronavirus and about how the government and other institutions are responding to the pandemic.