We live in a society that always demands our attention.
We are swimming in an ocean of information and discourse, facing tsunamis of news from natural disasters to celebrity scandals that threaten to overwhelm us. In the stormy seas of society, keeping up with important news grows more difficult with each passing day.
University associate journalism professor Benjamin Toff said that between the speed at which major political events happen and the crowded media environment, many people lack in-depth knowledge about politics and policy.
“People have never really paid close attention to what’s happening in politics,” Toff said. “But especially given the media environment and all of the other things that are competing for people’s attention, they’re just not tuning in to as much of the details.”
As the Trump administration implements major policies such as cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the American public needs to be well-informed to best understand how governmental policies will affect them.
Yet more and more people are turning away from traditional news sources, preferring to get their news from sources like social media. This can severely limit and skew the public policy information they receive.
The growing distaste for traditional news sources is especially dangerous for younger generations, as policies such as Pell Grant cuts and limitations on student loans put students’ abilities to afford college at risk.
Toff said younger people have historically been more guarded around political media as they explore their own political identities. However, this caution increased dramatically among today’s younger generations due to the chaotic media environment enabled by social media and greater ease of information access.
“Younger people are more likely to both say that they are actively avoiding news and consume less news in general,” Toff said. “It is also the case that younger people tend to be less politically active and less likely to vote.”
University political science professor Larry Jacobs said part of the reason for the overwhelming wave of political news is that Republicans in power are doing everything they can to obscure the ramifications of their policy decisions.
“The general strategy here is to hide your tracks, and Republicans are counting on the fact that Gen Z will be on to some other issue and not realize what hit them,” Jacobs said. “It’s both a lack of policy knowledge and awareness, but more so a deliberate effort by lawmakers to hide the consequences of what they’ve done.”
In a world where our attention is divided, a firehose of political news is often enough to deter people from politics completely. This further limits their awareness of policy changes.
Toff said the strategy of dumping a ton of policy information to distract from the actual policy decisions and overwhelm the public is not new, but has increased under the current Trump administration.
“There is a strategy of inundating people with so many things all at once that, whether you’re an interest group or a concerned member of the public, you can’t keep track of it all because there’s too much and it’s too overwhelming,” Toff said.
On top of the sheer volume of policy information coming out of Washington D.C., it can be hard to figure out what is actually happening when the administration’s statements and policies don’t line up.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Monday there would be no cuts to Medicaid as a result of the One Big Beautiful Bill recently signed into law, despite the bill cutting about $1 trillion from the program.
Much of the Trump administration’s rhetoric around policy decisions can be compared to the misdirection of magicians and street performers, according to Jacobs.
“If you’re watching a juggler at a circus, it’s hard to keep your eye on just one of the pins that are being thrown in the air because there are so many others that are going up,” Jacobs said. “The strategic effort here is to manipulate your attention.”
While it may seem extremely difficult to keep track of everything going on in the political world, it is crucial that we keep our eyes on the ball. Policy changes can and will have real effects on our day-to-day lives.
Toff said that while being informed is important, the sheer amount of information surrounding the government makes it neither possible nor necessary to be completely aware of everything going on in politics.
“You can be a good citizen and still confine the portion of your day that you pay attention to news to a reasonable amount of time,” Toff said. “If you have an interest in (politics), you could saturate your life with it in a way that is not actually healthy.”
That being said, the administration’s policies affect people to varying degrees, warranting increased scrutiny and consideration.
Jacobs said it is important for students to engage with the political world as much as possible because of the direct control lawmakers have over things like education and healthcare.
“It’s very important to be engaged, to track policy and to remain diligent in terms of taking opportunities to be active in elections,” Jacobs said. “The worst outcome here would be for students to feel fatalistic and then detached.”
We all must find a way to process the waves of news we view every day instead of letting them overwhelm us and tuning out completely. Politics isn’t just a far-off world of chaos. It’s a force that has the power to change our lives, and we must treat it as such.
After all, a well-informed society is a functional society.