Too many notifications. A growing number of smartphone users have reported feeling overwhelmed by mobile notifications — particularly ones from news aggregators and publishers, according to the Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2025 (pdf).

Is no news good news? Some 79% of Reuters’ survey respondents said they do not receive any news alerts, with 43% noting that they have actively disabled them due to sheer quantity and perceived usefulness, according to the report. A number of respondents said their decision was based on the emotionally distressing nature of the news alerts received, with others claiming their frustrations were with certain publishers promoting clickbait headlines.

How many notifications are we talking about? The report found that many publishers have become cautious about the quantity of push notifications sent out, with most enforcing strict limits in fear that users may unsubscribe or uninstall their apps. Not all publishers have displayed the same control, however. BBC news was found to push an average of 8.3 notifications a day, New York Times 10, India’s NDTV 29.1, with Israel’s Jerusalem Post pushing a staggeringly high average of 38.7 notifications a day.

The battle for lockscreen real estate. Television and print media have both “declined substantially” as primary news sources for most audiences, replaced by online and social media, according to the report. Yet this means the battle has now moved to users’ lockscreens — and publishers aren’t quite sure what to do. Reign in the notifications and risk losing your audience? Or double down and risk them unsubscribing? There might be a middle ground.

The report recommends tailoring custom notifications for each user, citing The Financial Times’ personalized notification system that users can opt for based on their interests. “Moving away from using push alerts as a blunt instrument and providing more personal choice and control could yet help publishers sustainably grow engagement on their critical mobile platforms,” the report reads.

If traditional news outlets are dipping, and netizens are silencing their notifications, where are people getting news? In the UK, online media still reigns supreme. In Australia and Brazil, podcasts have become a primary news source, and in Denmark, Facebook proves the primary social media platform for news. In France, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube are the most popular sources, driven by the younger generations — a pattern shared across most of the countries spotlighted in the study.

A sign of things to come. In India,18% of individuals surveyed said that AI chatbots were amongst their primary news sources. As search engines and other online platforms integrate real-time news, AI chatbots are increasingly becoming more popular as a primary on-demand source. While the percentage of users opting for an AI-first news search remains relatively low at 7% weekly, the number is much higher — at 15% — among individuals under the age of 25. Reuters, however, notes that the majority of audiences remain skeptical of news provided by AI chatbots.

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