WHY EVERYTHING IS GETTING LOUDER
Take a breath. If the news lately feels louder, angrier, and more exhausting than usual, you’re not imagining it.
Research shows 65% of Americans say thinking about politics leaves them feeling exhausted, and 55% say it makes them angry. This is intentional.
About half of U.S. adults now get news from social media, where algorithms are designed to maximize engagement.
And what gets engagement? Outrage.
Studies show people are more likely to share and interact with content that triggers anger or fear, which means the most inflammatory posts are often the ones that spread the fastest.
That creates a feedback loop: the angrier the content, the more it spreads, and the more it spreads, the angrier everything feels.
No wonder many Americans are starting to tune out entirely.
In 2016, 51% of Americans said they followed the news closely.
By 2025 that number had dropped to 36%.
So if the country feels like it’s constantly on the verge of meltdown, remember something important:
The loudest voices online are often the smallest slice of the country.
Most Americans are still just trying to live their lives, take care of their families, and make the country work a little better tomorrow than it did today.
Sometimes the smartest political act is simply refusing to let the outrage machine decide how you feel. —
03/12/2026 Sources: Nature Human Behaviour research on emotional sharing online, Freeman School of Business “Rage clicks: Study shows how political outrage fuels social media engagement”, Pew Research Center analysis of declining news attention.
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You are inconsiderate of your readers, because you expect them to rrust your allegations without your linking to your (alleged) sources. You demand they have faith in you, instead of in what they already belive. You are "preaching to the choir." You are a person of faith, not of science.