Many people spend a ridiculous amount of time consuming political news. But in recent years, and especially this year with its looming elections in the vast majority of Western democracies, this is even more pronounced. And psychological findings about the way the brain processes incoming information can help us understand differences in the way people at different ends of the political spectrum react to and digest news. While a lot has been said about the asymmetry between how critical people on the left and on the right are towards the news sources, my point here is more straightforward but more surprising (and also less controversial).

One big and measurable difference between news-consuming habits on the left and on the right is that people on the left get a significant proportion of their news from (almost exclusively left-wing) late night talk shows, whereas the same is not true of right-wing viewers (amazingly, this was already the case in 2004). Some of these shows are hilarious, in fact, most of them are. Seth Meyers, Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert and now the returning Jon Stewart can really crack you up. But when it comes to political influence, getting your news from late night talks is a bad idea.

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