News by choice: News avoidance among Sultan Qaboos University students: Motivations and behaviors through selective exposure theory

Using the Selective Exposure Theory to examine how psychology affects the way people choose which information they will receive from digital sources, this study examined why students avoid the news. A sample of 394 university students (undergraduates & graduates) from Sultan Qaboos University were surveyed, via a stratified random sampling approach. Scales that had been previously used and validated measured how much students avoided news on purpose or by accident; how much they felt overloaded with information; how anxious they were about the news; and how they consumed information on social media. The data was analyzed to see if there were correlations between the variables; whether certain factors could predict other; whether information overload was an intermediary in predicting avoidance of news; and to create groups of students based on their use of the Internet for news. The results found that News Anxiety predicted both Intentional (β = 0.16, p = 0.004) and Unintentional (β = 0.18, p = 0.001) News Avoidance Behaviors. Results also showed that Information Overload influenced Intentional Avoidance Behavior mainly through Emotional Pathways (Sobel z = 4.92, p < 0.001), not through Cognitive Mechanisms. In addition, three different profiles of information behavior were found: (1) High Anxiety Avoiders (14.7%), (2) Overloaded Strategic Avoiders (51.3%), and (3) Low Engagement users (34.0%). These findings suggest that information literacy education and academic support services should be developed with a differential approach, addressing both the emotional and cognitive aspects of information consumption, as opposed to developing universal approaches. This research contributes to the development of Selective Exposure Theory within information science, as it demonstrates how students’ emotional regulation drives their avoidance of information in digital environments, providing theoretical insights and practical frameworks for understanding current information behavior patterns.