‘They annoyed me so I turned them off': Why phone users are turning off news alerts
For many people, a mobile notification announces the latest in the world — from sports to politics and everything in between. But new research is showing what many already believe: an average user gets too many alerts. The sheer scale of 'alert fatigue' is pushing people to actively turn off news alerts, spooked by the grim nature of news or the misleading nature of some push notifications.
The research also showed mobile notifications from aggregators, often powered by artificial intelligence, are now one of the main ways one receives breaking news. Mobile-majority countries in Africa and Asia, such as Kenya and India, lead the way.
As users face an avalanche of news updates whenever they log on to their social media accounts, many are simply trying to actively avoid news. A large majority (79 per cent) of phone users have either actively disabled news alerts or never received them because 'they say they get too many or they are not relevant to their lives,' according to the Digital News Report 2025 from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.
One respondent said news alerts 'annoyed me, so I turned them off', while others were more concerned about the depressing nature of the news being pushed. 'I turned off all my news apps and sites after (US President Donald) Trump was elected', says one liberal respondent from the United States, according to the report.
Another said they 'switched off notifications again because it's emotionally distressing'. Researchers studying the data found a link: those who say they 'often avoid' the news are less likely to sign up in the first place and more likely to disable them later.
It wasn't always about the sheer scale of round-the-clock global developments. Respondents also found alerts got on their nerves in some other ways. 'Sometimes the headlines are misleading when you select the article. Sometimes you have to pay to view the content, especially on Apple News,' said one UK respondent.
While news organisations continued to depend on push notifications and newsletters to deeply engage with users who have already signed up, people continued to depend on search (45 per cent weekly use) and social media (43 per cent) for finding the news content of their choice.
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