Adolescents’ selective exposure to nutrition-related content on the web: understanding the roles of identity-consistent content choice, self-altruism and social support

Abstract

Media, particularly the Internet, significantly influences youth behavior. However, there remains a gap in our understanding of the antecedents and outcomes of adolescents’ selective exposure to web-based media content and its subsequent consequences. Therefore, this study explores adolescents’ perspectives on their use of web-based media for receiving nutrition-related content and how it reinforces their nutrition literacy and health-related behavior. A mixed-method approach was employed, combining focus group discussions (FGDs) and survey, to comprehensively gather data on adolescents’ selective exposure to online nutritional content. Qualitative data from the FGDs were analyzed using NVivo, while the 345 valid survey responses were analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). By incorporating the Reinforcing Spiral Model (RSM), this research concludes that adolescents’ content choices, self-altruism, and social dynamics over the web platform influence their selective exposure to media content.