Overwhelmed Voters Unplug: Perceived Election News Overload and Intentional Election News Avoidance

U.S. presidential campaigns generate an extraordinary volume of political news intended to inform and mobilize the electorate. Yet long-standing concerns about citizens’ limited capacity to process political information raise the possibility that this abundance may instead produce disengagement as a coping mechanism for election stress. This study examines whether perceptions of election news overload during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign are linked to intentional avoidance of election-related news. Drawing on an original six-item measure of perceived election news overload, the analysis reveals substantial heterogeneity in how citizens experienced the campaign news environment, with a majority reporting at least some degree of overload. Importantly, higher levels of perceived election news overload are associated with a greater likelihood of intentionally avoiding election coverage. This relationship persists after accounting for well-established predictors of political information engagement, including political interest, efficacy, knowledge, partisan strength, and demographics. Moving beyond reliance on self-reports alone, the study combines survey measures with a news story selection task to capture both behavioral and stated avoidance. The findings suggest that information abundance during campaigns may undermine citizen competence by encouraging strategic disengagement from election news.