The impact of source credibility on young adults' Health information activities on facebook: Preliminary findings

Within the context of SNSs, particularly Facebook, this study aims to understand how young adults perceive the credibility of various information sources, how their information activities differ by those information sources, and how young adults' perception of credibility impacts their information activities. The results of an online survey demonstrated that young adults consider medical/health organizations and government agencies the most credible and friends the least credible for health issues. As for information activities, although young adults' intents to read postings were significantly greater than those to post questions or answers, intents of information activities were generally lower than neutral. Nevertheless, it was found that the more young adults trust information sources, the more likely they are to be involved in information activities. The results showed the potential of Facebook as a good information channel, especially for health professionals and governmental organizations.

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