No News Is Good News (Unless It’s Not)

A field guide to quiet panic, deliberate silence, and the emotional choreography of not being told anything

Once upon a time, “no news is good news” was the comforting phrase you clung to when the phone didn’t ring. These days? Silence feels more like a plot twist. In relationships, when a partner goes quiet, we don’t assume they’re peacefully journaling. We assume distance, disinterest, or a passive-aggressive storm brewing in the group chat.

In workplaces, radio silence from management doesn’t feel like calm. It feels like exclusion. The vacuum fills with rumours, Slack side-channels, and one brave soul asking, “Any updates?” only to be met with a shrug emoji. God, I hate emojis as a reply; it says I don’t give a s**t.

In health and care, waiting for test results in silence rarely feels neutral. It feels like abandonment. Or worse concealment. And in politics? When leaders go quiet, we don’t assume they’re meditating. We assume cover-ups, chaos, or a press release being drafted in panic.

Psychologists call this the negativity bias: we’re wired to notice threats more than neutral signals.

So, when there’s no information, our brains fill the gap with worst-case scenarios. In a culture where updates are constant, silence isn’t soothing. It’s suspicious.

The emotional price of “no news” is steep: anxiety, mistrust, and disconnection. It’s the kind of silence that doesn’t let you rest, it makes you refresh your inbox, reread old messages, and wonder if you missed something. In this sense, no news really is bad news. It’s not absence. It’s ambiguity. And ambiguity is exhausting.

And yet the old phrase still holds water in the right context. Sometimes silence is exactly what we need.

A doctor who promises to call only if the results are concerning. The phone doesn’t ring. You exhale.

A teenager out with friends. No frantic texts. No calls from strangers. Just quiet. You sleep.

A project at work that’s running smoothly. No updates because there’s nothing wrong. You sip your tea.

Here, silence isn’t neglect. It’s trust. It’s stability. It’s the kind of quiet that lets you rest instead of spiral.

This is why so many people, especially younger generations in the UK, are switching off from the news cycle. Not because they don’t care, but because they care too much. The constant flood of headlines feels overwhelming, depressing, and increasingly untrustworthy. For them, “no news” isn’t ignorance. It’s self-care. It’s a boundary. It’s a way to protect mental health in a world that never stops shouting.

It depends.
When silence shows up where communication is expected in relationships, workplaces, or healthcare, it feels like neglect.
But when silence arrives where reassurance has been promised, or where noise has become unbearable, it feels like peace.

The paradox is that both sayings are true. Silence can corrode, or it can comfort. The art is knowing when to speak, and when to let the quiet do its work.

“No news is bad news” reminds us that silence can wound when connection is needed.
“No news is good news” reminds us that silence can soothe when noise is too much.
Between the two lies the real wisdom: communication is never neutral. It always means something.
Even when it says nothing at all.

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