What makes a Tweet so sweet: The neurocognitive effects of hedonic information consumption

Hedonic information consumption (HIC) refers to the consumption of information for non-task-oriented purposes such as entertainment or pleasure. With the explosive growth of information availability through online channels such as social media, HIC has become a common and growing phenomenon; however, most information systems research to date has focused on factors surrounding information consumption for utilitarian rather than hedonic purposes. In this paper, we take an initial step to inform theory in this area by applying a NeuroIS lens to explore HIC behavior. We postulate that information is more likely to be hedonically consumed when it is appraised as interesting, and that certain characteristics of the information involved in HIC, namely its novelty and valence, play a role in determining its interestingness. Moreover, we hypothesize that HIC is driven by the neurobiological reactions that take place in response to information novelty and valence. We report the results of a behavioral and an fMRI experiment designed to measure the relationship between these information dimensions and neurocognitive responses in the context of a popular social media platform. Our results provide preliminary evidence for differential processing patterns related to novelty and valence that can inform ongoing theory building surrounding HIC behaviors.