Caught in a Dangerous World: Problematic News Consumption and Its Relationship to Mental and Physical Ill-Being

This study adds to the growing body of literature on problematic media behavior by introducing and explicating the concept of problematic news consumption, which we define as involving transportation, preoccupation, misregulation, underregulation, and interference. Using survey data from a national sample of U.S. adults, we examine the factor structure of a problematic news consumption measure, the existence of latent classes derived from the expected factors, and differences in mental and physical health across the emerging classes. Results show support for the proposed factor structure as well as the existence of four latent classes, which appear to be stratified according to severity of problematic news consumption. Results also show greater mental and physical ill-being among those with higher levels of problematic news consumption compared to those with lower levels, even after controlling for demographics, personality traits, and overall news use. Implications for designing effective media literacy campaigns to raise awareness of the potential for news consumption to develop into a problematic behavior as well as the development of intervention strategies are discussed.