“Information Modes”

This study explores how young adults (18–24 years old) in India and the US navigate information in an era of constant online presence. As social media has evolved from an information source to a space where individuals lead significant portions of their social lives, and as generative AI has replaced traditional search engines, this study finds that existing frameworks for information seeking, trust heuristics, and literacy interventions require expansion. In this paper, we highlight the significant role of emotional defense and social dynamics in shaping information seeking, avoidance, and selective processing. Using ethnographic methods, we find that, in an era of being “always on,” young adults strive to maintain emotional equilibrium, subconsciously fluctuating between “information modes”: a conceptual framework describing a range of embodied states that entail varying levels of readiness for deliberative thinking and predisposition toward heuristic shortcuts. Participants in this study primarily engaged in information modes that bypassed traditional media literacy practices—such as critical thinking and source evaluation—because they were focused on entertainment, or “light” content they found soothing, which they saw as not requiring scrutiny. Significantly, information sourced from generative AI often felt “light” because it was perceived to only impact themselves. In this study, content without clear social consequence was a determining factor in what felt worthy of scrutiny. Our findings highlight the crucial role of emotional and social self-regulation in young adults’ everyday practices of information seeking and evaluation, emphasizing the need for literacy approaches that account for the emotional and social dimensions of online engagement when developing interventions for young adults in rapidly changing digital ecosystems.