Challenges to Selective Exposure: Selective Seeking and Avoidance in a Multitasking Media Environment

The present research investigated selective exposure online, treating selective seeking and selective avoidance as independent phenomena. A behavior tracking measure was employed. Study 1 used an online quasi-experiment with voluntary national samples (n = 271). Consistent with early reviews on selective exposure, participants sought out attitude consonant information but did not systematically avoid attitude dissonant information compared to neutral information. Study 2 involved an experiment with student samples (n = 185) to examine the impact of cognitive load on selective behavior. The results revealed that those who were asked to multitask during an information search did not exercise any selectivity in information selection. The implications of information selection behavior in a multitasking media environment are discussed.