The third-person effect refers to the perception that media messages affect others more than they affect oneself. This effect exists widely in traditional media. Individuals are increasingly using social media to seek and share information. Unlike traditional media, social media can provide users with some metrics (e.g., likes, comments, and forwards) to refer to the attitudes of others toward a particular message, which may affect people's perceptions of the message's impact. However, previous studies have yielded mixed conclusions regarding the relationship between social media metrics and the third-person effect. It may relate to problems in experimental design, materials, and research methods. Moreover, the personal relevance of information may also play a significant role in the relationship mentioned above. Eye-tracking data indicate that high-relevance information can gain more fixation time and points than low-relevance information. Therefore, this study employed a behavioral experiment combined with eye-tracking techniques to examine the impact of social media metrics and the information personal relevance on the third-person effect, which consists of the influence of information on oneself and the influence of information on others.
This study employed a 3 (social media metrics: low, medium, and high) × 2 (personal relevance: low and high) within-subjects experimental design. Ninety-nine undergraduates and graduates were randomly recruited from a university in Dalian, China. After excluding 12 participants due to incomplete or unusable eye-tracking data, 87 valid participants were retained (24 males and 63 females). Their ages ranged from 18 to 28 years (M = 21.24, SD = 2.39). The experimental materials included six Weibo posts, which consisted of social media metrics and health information texts covering three types of diseases: infectious, major, and chronic. A preliminary survey showed that these health messages could trigger third-person effects in the absence of a social media framework and metrics. During the formal experiment, each post was presented randomly on a computer screen. After viewing the post freely, participants evaluated the two indicators of the third-person effect using rating scales. Eye-tracking data were recorded synchronously and divided into two regions of interest: the text and the metrics.
The results showed that health information triggered a third-person effect when social media metrics were in the thousands or tens of thousands; conversely, a first-person effect was triggered when metrics were in the single digits or tens. High-relevance information led to a third-person effect, whereas low-relevance information triggered a first-person effect. Social media metrics and information personal relevance, the two independent variables in this study, had significant main effects and interactions on the third-person effect and its two indicators, except for the personal relevance of information, which did not affect the perceived influence of information on others. According to the eye-tracking data, the higher the social media metrics, the longer participants' total fixation time on the text and metrics in the post; the same pattern was observed for the personal relevance of information. However, in the high metrics condition, participants spent more time fixing on low-relevance information than on high-relevance information.
According to the results, whether health information on social media triggers third-person effects is determined by the interaction between social media metrics and information personal relevance. When judging the impact of a message on others, people rely on social media metrics, but when judging its impact on themselves, they further consider the personal relevance of the information. Social media metrics and information personal relevance may enhance the accuracy of information processing by strengthening both external and internal motivations. High social media metrics are important as heuristic cues in most conditions. When high metrics appear with low-relevance information, people may experience cognitive dissonance and thus invest more effort in processing to restore cognitive balance. Such cognitive processing promotes users' comprehension and processing of the information, leading to behaviors consistent with the feedback from others.
Key words
third-person effect /
social media metrics /
information personal relevance /
health information /
eye-tracking
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