Disengaging is No Longer an Option

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Annikah Mishra: Swiping right can become a bad habit. And I’m not talking about dating apps.

Every morning, I wake up to an inbox flooded with emails from The New York Times, The Washington Post and other outlets. Up until a few months ago, I would open each one, skim interesting headlines and their descriptions, and then fully read through the ones that had compelling stories. Yet since the beginning of this year, I have struggled to make it past the first headline — I just swipe right on the email and send it to my trash.

As students in a highly digitized world, we hear the same messages endlessly: “Take a break from social media!”, “Don’t let the news consume you”, or “Limit how much you read!”.

Despite these messages, in this time of disinformation, chaos and escalating political attacks on free speech, intentionally tuning out isn’t just unhelpful-  it’s dangerous. While I empathize with the anxiety and stress of consuming too much news, I strongly urge you not to fall into the trap of disengagement.

In an AP-NORC poll from December 2024, 65% of adults reported that they felt the need to limit their consumption of media about politics due to news fatigue or related reasons. Additionally, in a recent Pew Study from March 31, 2025, among Americans who reported that they are not closely following the Trump administration’s actions in the news, 60% of Democratic respondents attributed it to the same news fatigue.

Many of us can resonate with these sentiments. Some might still be recovering from the influx of political updates from the 2024 presidential election cycle. Every headline adds to a sense of impending doom. The flood of breaking news notifications- from federal funding research cuts to absurd security leaks to mass job cuts-  becomes overwhelming. 

Beyond this anxiety, there’s a deeper frustration for many: the “I saw this coming and warned you-  I’m done paying attention” sentiment.  

But this kind of disengagement is exactly what allows repressive and threatening policies to flourish. The desire and instinct to ignore the news is completely understandable- yet, it’s not something we can afford. 

When urgent stories have continuous updates and developments, it is okay to break the one-hour news limit that we have set for ourselves. However, when members of our communities are being detained, when our university programs are being slashed, when the current administration is threatening fundamental democratic norms- we no longer have the option to put our heads down. The stakes are too high. 

Sometimes, it takes an event that directly and tangibly affects your community- not just something you read in a headline- to break through this fatigue. 

On March 17, Dr. Badar Khan Suri, a Georgetown University postdoctoral fellow, was detained at his home in Rosslyn, Virginia. As an editor for The Hoya, I had to follow updates about this story closely. Even if I weren’t responsible for staying up to date, I still would have been glued to the story. This wasn’t yet another breaking news headline that came across my inbox-  this was happening to my community in our backyard.

My hope is that it doesn’t take another event like this for others to recognize the importance of paying attention. The price of being overwhelmed is far less than the cost of being dangerously uninformed. 

Importantly, staying up to date does not have to be mutually exclusive with taking care of your mental well-being. Boundaries can still be set with your time online. Balance your regular news feeds with outlets focusing on encouraging- yet still important- stories, including The Optimist Daily. Focus on well-researched and investigative reporting, not just headlines designed to grab your attention.

It is a privilege to be able to completely detach yourself from what is going on around you. Yes, sometimes you should take advantage of this ability to detach to avoid doom scrolling. However, there is a clear difference between scrolling in despair and scrolling to stay alert, prepared, and engaged.

To treat these times as business as usual and traditional politics would be to underestimate the gravity of what is unfolding. In moments like these, to tune out is to quietly surrender. Amidst attacks on the truth and rights, we must choose to stay vigilant and informed.

Annikah Mishra is a sophomore double majoring in Government and Sociology in the College.