Memory for tweets versus headlines: Does message consistency matter?

Abstract

People routinely use news outlets and social media platforms to keep up with recent events. While information from these common sources often aligns in the messages conveyed, news headlines and microblogs on social media also frequently provide contradictory messages. In this study, we examined how people recall and recognize tweets and news headlines when these sources provide inconsistent messaging. We tested this question in person (Experiment 1) and online (Experiment 2). Participants studied news headlines and tweets that provided either consistent messaging or inconsistent messaging, then completed a free recall and recognition memory task sequentially, and provided confidence ratings for recognition judgments. Findings were similar across memory tasks and experiments: Participants had better memory for tweets than news headlines regardless of message consistency. We discuss the implications of these findings for understanding memory in the digital age where social media use is widespread and messaging across sources is often inconsistent.

Special issue of applied cognitive psychology: Rethinking cognition in a digital environment

“…Finally, Peña et al (2023) examined memory in the context of different online media ecologies. They found that information presented in different formats for different online platforms seems to be differentially memorable.…”

Thinking in the digital age: Everyday cognition and the dawn of a new age of metacognition research

“…The Peña et al (2023) and Eliseev and Marsh (2023) studies both embody this general approach. That is, both take an observation grounded in individuals' everyday digital lives—better memory for tweets than headlines (Mickes et al, 2013), and inflated confidence in our knowledge after internet search compared to simply reading the same information (Fisher et al, 2015)—and subject them to rigorous experimentation to isolate the underlying mechanisms.…”