Social media self-efficacy and information evaluation online

This study introduces the concept of social media self-efficacy, or a person's perceived ability to reach desired outcomes in the social media environment, and examines the relationship between social media self-efficacy and how people evaluate information found online. Results of a survey of a representative sample of adult Internet users in the United States (N = 3568) indicate that users with higher social media self-efficacy find information shared via social media to be more trustworthy than do those lower in social media self-efficacy. These self-efficacious social media users also rely more both on the opinions of others and on social media specifically when evaluating or verifying the information they find online, suggesting that they may be more prone to seek out and be influenced by input from others. Practical and theoretical implications of these findings are explored. Social media enable people to distribute a wide range of information by creating and sharing content across a diversity of applications , such as blogs, wikis, and ratings or question and answer websites. As usage of social media continues to grow, and is further enhanced by its variety and mobility (Nielsen, 2012), the proportion of online information filtered in some manner through social media is swiftly increasing. Yet, there is substantial variance in the quality of the information available through social media (Agichtein, Castillo, Donato, Gionis, & Mishne, 2008). The social media environment allows the sharing of information between widely dispersed and frequently unknown individuals, and cues that traditionally have served to aid people in determining the trustworthiness of a source or a message are often obscured or absent in this online environment (Flanagin & Metzger, 2003). This can lead to negative outcomes if inaccurate information is trusted or acted upon. It has therefore become progressively more important to understand how information seekers evaluate the credibility of the information they receive via social media, as they increasingly rely upon this user-generated and user-curated content themselves and perpetuate it by sharing it with others. Furthermore , because the veracity of information and its perceived credibility may be particularly significant for certain information subjects (e.g., health), and less so for others (e.g., entertainment), understanding the credibility assessment of social media-based information by different information subjects or domains is particularly critical. Bandura (1997) demonstrated that observing others' performance and receiving feedback from others contribute to perceived self-efficacy within a domain, which is related to performance across …