From information seeking to information avoidance: Understanding the health information behavior during a global health crisis

TLDR

Individuals seek health information from diverse sources, but the resulting overload can trigger negative psychological and behavioral responses. The study proposes an S‑O‑R model linking information seeking, source diversity, and overload to anxiety and avoidance during COVID‑19. The model was tested with PLS‑SEM on survey data from 321 Finnish adults. Participants mainly used traditional and official online sources, avoided social media and personal networks, and found that social media exposure increased overload and anxiety, which in turn drove information avoidance.

Abstract

Individuals seek information for informed decision-making, and they consult a variety of information sources nowadays. However, studies show that information from multiple sources can lead to information overload, which then creates negative psychological and behavioral responses. Drawing on the Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) framework, we propose a model to understand the effect of information seeking, information sources, and information overload (Stimuli) on information anxiety (psychological organism), and consequent behavioral response, information avoidance during the global health crisis (COVID-19). The proposed model was tested using partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) for which data were collected from 321 Finnish adults using an online survey. People found to seek information from traditional sources such as mass media, print media, and online sources such as official websites and websites of newspapers and forums. Social media and personal networks were not the preferred sources. On the other hand, among different information sources, social media exposure has a significant relationship with information overload as well as information anxiety. Besides, information overload also predicted information anxiety, which further resulted in information avoidance.