After months of presidential election coverage, new polls highlight a multi-year trend of political fatigue in the United States.

After a year of ruthless and fierce U.S. rule presidential campaignA new poll shows Americans are looking for a break from political news.

AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research Poll Published on Thursday The study found that 65% of U.S. adults said they believe it is necessary to limit media consumption about politics and government “due to information overload (and) fatigue.”

Broken down by political affiliation, about 7 in 10 Democratic voters (72%) say they are avoiding political news. Fifty-nine percent of Republicans and 63% of independents said the same.

“People are mentally exhausted,” Ziad Aunallah, 45, of San Diego, California, told The Associated Press. “Everyone knows what’s coming and we’re just taking a break.”

The survey was conducted in early December and a few weeks later republican donald trump He defeated his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, in the November 5 presidential election.

Media coverage has focused largely on Trump and Harris, who have spent months campaigning, holding rallies and meeting with voters across the country.

Since Trump’s victory, the US president-elect — and his plan He moves into the White House next month, and this time he dominates the news cycle.

But as 2024 comes to a close, many Americans are not watching the news, as an AP-NORC poll found.

Nielsen said the MSNBC television news network’s prime-time viewership averaged 620,000 households after Election Night through December 13, a 54% drop from pre-election viewership this year. CNN’s average audience was 405,000, down 45% over the same period.

However, when looking at the numbers, a clear difference is seen. fox news channelthe favorite network of Trump supporters.

Nielsen said post-election average viewers there were 2.68 million, a 13% increase.

Since the election, 72% of people who watch one of the three cable networks in the evenings are watching Fox News, compared with 53% before Election Day.

Political fatigue and the need to disconnect from the news are not new phenomena in the United States. polarization Divisive rhetoric has surged in recent years.

In 2020, the Pew Research Center found that about two-thirds of Americans said they were “fatigued” by the amount of news they had access to, nearly the same proportion as in 2018 who said they were experiencing news fatigue.

pew September report Last year, 65% of respondents said they always or often felt tired when thinking about politics, while 55% said they always or often felt angry.

The same survey found that about 8 in 10 Americans responded negatively when asked to describe the political state of the country, with many choosing the word “divisive” to explain the situation.

Arash Javanbakht, associate professor of psychiatry at Wayne State University in Michigan, USA, explained that “the politics of fear” is one of the top three reasons why many Americans are disengaged from politics.

“I believe the COVID-19 pandemic, more than a decade of intense political pressure, polarization around social media and wars around the world, and public disillusionment with American politics and media have led many people to experience burnout and learned helplessness. Help.” he wrote In this month’s conversation.