Sensational headlines and fast-paced media consumption have come to define our current era. With the rise of the internet and social media, we can now access an immense number of sources with just a click of a button. But the speed at which we consume media has led to a sharp decrease in our attention spans, weakening our ability to fully understand the news that we’re so rapidly consuming.

According to a Northeastern Global News article, over the last 20 years the average attention span has decreased from around two-and-a-half minutes to just 45 seconds, showing a clear sign of a recession in today’s “attention economy.” In fact, a 2018 study using data from Google Trends estimated that the median news story’s lifespan of relevance was just seven days, with stories like midterm election results and Supreme Court nominations quickly falling out of interest.

This decline in attention has shifted the way media companies share news and how we choose to consume it. Shorter-form new sources, often found on social media platforms like YouTube, TikTok and Instagram, are an increasingly popular means of receiving news. According to the 2025 Reuters Institute Digital News Report, 63% of those aged 18-34 rely on social media as their main news source. While social media provides a larger platform for accessing news compared to traditional newspapers, it makes finding credible sources more challenging.

Thanks to the internet, news from traditional outlets is also more accessible, and media companies are capitalizing on this by producing more stories. However, increasing coverage leads to sacrificing quality for quantity. Additionally, overconsumption of media weakens our understanding of news and blurs the lines between stories of meaning and those there to fill space, blunting the impact of stories that do matter. A 2009 study by psychologists from the University of Cyprus found that participants who were repeatedly exposed to media violence felt less sympathy for victims compared to participants without repeated exposure.

In addition, many media companies prey on our laziness to delve into stories deeply by making headlines that don’t fully reflect a story’s meaning. An analysis of 40 million headlines by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development found that over the last two decades, there has been an increase in headlines used to clickbait readers and generate online engagement. Using a headline that has shock value over one that is true to the story sacrifices a key principle of journalism: sharing the truth.

While the prevalence of short-form media is likely not fading in the near future, the way we approach our understanding of it needs to. As student journalists, we understand the fragility of public knowledge and the media’s role in shaping it, which is why one of The Spoke’s key values is prioritizing objective and ethical reporting over eye-catching headlines. We encourage other media organizations to follow suit in focusing on the pursuit of truth.

However, the reality is that media companies are unlikely to change if it risks hurting their bottom line. Instead, readers must shift their mindset. By understanding the pitfalls of the fast-paced news cycle and how disinformation and overconsumption of media can cloud our judgment of reality, we become more aware of what’s truly accurate and important in the news. Ultimately, it falls on both journalists to produce ethical work and readers to pay thoughtful attention to the media they consume to ensure society does not plummet into a state of mass disinformation.