Health information seeking via social media: a study of college students using the MAIN model

Objective: This study explored how social media affordances—modality, agency, interactivity, and navigability—affect health information-seeking behaviors (HISB) and perceived credibility, using the MAIN model as a framework. Participants: 432 college students from the Northeastern United States. Methods: Participants completed an online survey via Qualtrics assessing their experiences with Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. Structural equation modeling was used to test the predictive relationships among platform affordances, credibility perceptions, and both active and passive HISB. Results: Findings support some of the paths tested in the MAIN model, shedding light on the effects of gratifications of modality, agency, interactivity, and navigability on participants' active and passive health information seeking and credibility assessment. Conclusions: Affordance-based gratifications are important in understanding how college students seek and evaluate health information on social media. These findings offer theoretical insights and practical implications for designing effective health communication strategies.