Taking It In With Eyes Wide Shut

Research analyst Emily Stone stopped watching the news when she realized she couldn’t shake the images of crumbled skyscrapers and grief-stricken families. Even the newspaper was “too touchy-feely,” so she switched to a more analytical periodical.

Bedridden by a back strain, journalism expert Al Tompkins of the Tampa-based Poynter Institute forced himself to watch reruns of “Lassie” and “I Love Lucy” to counter reports of the devastation. Community activist Jeff Brain of Glendale turned off the tube and started taking hikes. One journalist stopped reading her own newspaper for a few days because, she said, “I couldn’t stop crying.”

Media overload is afflicting Americans in the aftermath of Sept. 11’s terrorist attacks. Ratings and newspaper sales have skyrocketed in the last two weeks. CNN’s average total viewers jumped 667% from Sept. 11 to Sept. 23 compared with the same time last year. The Fox News Channel and MSNBC’s total viewers have jumped nearly 400% during the same period. Newspaper editors across the country reported circulation boosts as high as 200% in the days following the attacks. The Times sold 242,000 more copies of its newspaper on Sept. 12; Latimes.com received about 5 million page views--more than twice the site’s previous record, set after the Lakers’ most recent championship.

But many Americans who sought to connect with the tragedy through TV updates and newspaper extras have found themselves so weary from the bad news--and the complexity of the story as it unfolds--that they are restricting their information intake to preserve their peace of mind.

“If I wasn’t watching, I felt guilty, as if I was turning my back on it,” said Stone, 28, who works at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. “Now I’m so tired of seeing the images of buildings collapse. It’s less fascination and more just anger and sadness, and I don’t want to keep living it.”

Symptoms of post-traumatic stress reaction, a harbinger to the disorder, have been reported by some television viewers. Depression, hypersensitivity, lack of focus and sleeplessness were reported by 71% of the 1,200 adults surveyed Sept. 13-17 by the Pew Research Center, a Washington, D.C.-based independent opinion research group that studies attitudes toward the press, politics and public policy issues. More than 81% of those surveyed said that during the five-day period, they were constantly tuned in to news reports.

By watching the mass destruction on television, “there’s a vicarious experience of trauma that takes place,” UCLA psychology professor Daniel Kupper said. People who watch too much TV coverage of the terrorist attacks will either become desensitized to it or will be haunted by those images even after the monitor is turned off, he said. “That has the effect of a general state of hyper-arousal, hyper-alertness and excessive amounts of anxiety,” Kupper said.

Post-traumatic stress disorder is the clinical diagnosis for these symptoms, which may persist for months after a traumatic event.

To reduce stress, Kupper suggested reading the news to allow more “active processing” of the information. Watching TV news “tends to increase a sense of helplessness and vulnerability,” he said.

Stone’s husband Bryan, 29, a West Los Angeles graduate student, stays tuned to TV news almost all day. Consequently, he said, he feels slightly anxious much of the time.

Lisa Johns, 27, a Los Angeles hotel clerk, said she was overcome with a sense of fatalism after watching nonstop news coverage.

Ten days after the attacks, she said, she was contacting old friends and offering loved ones overdue apologies. She also joined her next-door neighbors for a night out.

“I feel like I should enjoy life a little more and not waste it,” she said. “Especially with what’s going on. You don’t know what’s going to happen. Tomorrow it could be over.”

“In this particular situation, we’re all affected because of the ongoing sense of threat,” UCLA adjunct professor of psychology Jill Waterman said. “We do all feel personally threatened.”

Mental health and media experts say it’s important to take breaks from the news coverage and focus attention on more positive aspects of life.

Giving money or donating time to charitable groups and agencies may help people overcome feelings of powerlessness, Waterman said. Returning to familiar routines and talking with supportive people also help process the experience, she said. “Be kind to yourself,” Waterman said. “Go to a movie. Have a massage.”

Another way to rekindle optimism, Tompkins said, is to watch children at play in a park or to visit the new baby ward of a hospital.

“You just lose perspective,” he said. “ ... and there comes a time when you need to sort of just stop taking it in.”