Key points are not available for this paper at this time.
Social media has become an important venue for health learning, where algorithmic recommendations coexist with intentional information seeking. Extending the cognitive mediation model (CMM), this study examines how self- and family-oriented motivations relate to exposure to cardiovascular disease (CVD) information on social media, and how different exposure patterns are associated with cognitive and affective elaboration and knowledge outcomes. Survey data from 1,097 adults were analyzed using structural equation modeling and age-based multigroup comparisons. Both motivations are linked to more active seeking and second-level incidental exposure, but to less first-level incidental exposure. Active seeking and second-level incidental exposure are associated with higher cognitive and affective elaboration, whereas first-level incidental exposure shows no learning associations. Cognitive elaboration is related to multiple forms of CVD knowledge, while affective elaboration is related to factual and subjective knowledge. Age patterns indicate stronger affective learning among younger adults and more cognitively oriented learning among older groups.
Yang et al. (Thu,) studied this question.