Advice From Counselors: How to Handle the Heavy News Cycle

A reader scrolls through headlines on a smartphone as people increasingly engage with today’s fast-paced news cycle. Photo credits: PRNEWS

Anna Norris, Editor-In-Chief of The Powderhorn

With news apps, Instagram stories, and TikTok influencers dominating how young adults consume information, traditional journalism is being replaced by fast, often biased content. The constant stream of information can feel overwhelming, blurring the line between truth and opinion and leaving many anxious and fatigued. As current events in the United States seem especially pressing to pay attention to, tired eyes are kept up late reading multimedia news forms that hone in on the negative. Young adults are left searching for a trusted, unbiased source of news. 

“Often the news focuses on the negative stories, more than the uplifting stories, and when scary things are happening in our country and in our world, I think it can make people, especially young people, feel really hopeless,” said Watauga High School Counselor Rachel Wood. 

Wood urges students to remember that the news cycle is selective and can give readers a skewed sense of what the world is like. Especially found on social media platforms, algorithms are curated based on how individual viewers are reacting to certain news stories. This consistently allows for one-sided news to be presented and leaves many viewers not feeling the need to check their sources. 

“Put a time limit on the scrolling,” said Wood. “Because, before you know it, it'll be an hour-- two hours-- and you're just scrolling through the worst of the worst. So put a time limit on any technology, any screen time, no matter what you're doing with it, whether you're looking at Pinterest, prom dress pictures, or you're looking at the news, or Instagram, or whatever. Do other things off the screens: go outside, exercise, talk to your friends, and talk to your family. I think something that's missing from a lot of people's daily routine is outside time.”

While a common struggle with students overconsuming news is their inability to control news on a global scale, the most detrimental news coverage to students’ mental health is events that could occur in their own school and community. 

“I think anytime school shootings happen in the news, it's really scary thinking about how that could have happened here,” said Wood. “And it's hard for any of us not to imagine. You know, ‘What if that was me?’ I think that's hard for teachers too, for anybody who works in a school, having to come in after we've learned about something is really hard.”

In addition to bias and negativity, artificial intelligence is becoming more present in the news, although students are being urged to use their own critical thinking skills. In a world where there are so many online resources at their fingertips, administrators and teachers at Watauga High School hope students will take their English skills with them in evaluating biased news sources. 

“TikTok and X are probably the two ones that I think create a lot of fear for young kids because X isn't super regulated and there's just stuff getting spewed all over the place,” said Watauga High School Mental Health Specialist, Audrey Lipschutz. “And TikTok is basically the same. It's like clips of the really scary parts of what's happening in the world. And then people record responses to those things, and influencers comment on it, and things can spiral out of control. I think something kids can do is just take what they see online with a grain of salt.”

Given the emotional toll that constant exposure to social media can take, Lipschutz stresses the importance of stepping back. Students are encouraged to be intentional about how and how much they engage with social media. 

“This is a really scary time for everybody,” said Lipschutz. “And I just want everyone to know they are not alone in how they feel. And the number one thing I can recommend is taking social media breaks. Whether it's limiting your usage after school or on weekends, and then like going and doing something with family and watching a movie, just limiting the amount of news that you ingest. Because like I said before, no human is meant to absorb this much stress, and it's just been thing after thing after thing. So take breaks. I can't emphasize that enough.”