Information avoidance behavior on social network sites: Information irrelevance, overload, and the moderating role of time pressure

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

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The study examines the factors leading to information avoidance during COVID-19 pandemic.

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Mass Media, Print Media and official websites are used for information seeking during the pandemic.

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Only Social Media exposure results in information overload and information anxiety.

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Information overload is strongly associated with information anxiety which gives rise to information avoidance.

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We extend the applicability of S-O-R model to the information behavior domain, especially during the uncertain times.

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.

Examining the Effect of Overload on the MHealth Application Resistance Behavior of Elderly Users: An SOR Perspective

Aging has increased the burden of social medical care. Mobile health (mHealth) services provide an effective way to alleviate this pressure. However, the actual usage of mHealth services for elderly users is still very low. The extant studies mainly focused on elderly users’ mHealth adoption behavior, but resistance behavior has not been sufficiently explored by previous research. A present study tried to remedy this research gap by examining the effect of overload factors on the mHealth application resistance behavior based on the stimulus-organism-response (SOR) framework. The results indicated that information overload and system feature overload of an mHealth application increased the fatigue and technostress of the elderly user, which further increased their resistance behavior. Meanwhile, we integrated the intergeneration support with the SOR model to identify the buffer factor of the elderly user’s resistance behavior. The results showed that intergenerational support not only directly decrease the elderly user’s mHealth application resistance behavior, but also moderates (weaken) the effects of fatigue and technostress on resistance behavior. The present study also provided several valuable theoretical and practical implications.