Leading experts have called for the practice of reporting news to be permanently banned because they have found it is bad for people’s health to know what is going on in the world.
Researchers at the University of Potemkin completed a year long double-blind study to assess the impact of daily consumption of news on people’s health. They found that those who know what is going on in the world are twice as likely to engage in debate, which may cause their heart rate to increase. Additionally, 40% of those who consumed daily news displayed addictive behaviours, becoming anxious and unsettled when their daily news was not available.
“The evidence is clear that regular consumption of news can have all kinds of serious health effects,” said lead researcher Professor Imelda Orwell.
“People who consume daily news use considerably more of their brain.”
“Heart and breathing rates can became elevated as they respond to being aware of things happening in the world.”
“Even when news of war and corruption was balanced with news of locals doing well, cute puppies and children winning awards, daily news consumers displayed concerning behaviours such as seeking out even more information.”
The research has recommended that all daily news services should be banned immediately.
“Even just knowing what the date is could be bad for you,” Professor Orwell said.
“Daily news simply must be banned immediately.”
Professor Orwell conceded the extreme measure would be tricky to implement, particularly in countries where legislation protected the free press, but said that paywalls could be redeployed to stop people reading news.
“The technology is already there to stop people from reading the news, so it would be easily redeployed for this purpose.”
“Instead of preventing people from reading the news because they lack money, you could stop them from reading the news because its Tuesday, or because they have already read three articles this month.”
News advocates felt that further research was needed to confirm that the reported health impacts were not a joke.
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