Negativity Bias in Media Multitasking: The Effects of Negative Social Media Messages on Attention to Television News Broadcasts

Abstract

Television viewers’ attention is increasingly more often divided between television and “second screens”, for example when viewing television broadcasts and following their related social media discussion on a tablet computer. The attentional costs of such multitasking may vary depending on the ebb and flow of the social media channel, such as its emotional contents. In the present study, we tested the hypothesis that negative social media messages would draw more attention than similar positive messages. Specifically, news broadcasts were presented in isolation and with simultaneous positive or negative Twitter messages on a tablet to 38 participants in a controlled experiment. Recognition memory, gaze tracking, cardiac responses, and self-reports were used as attentional indices. The presence of any tweets on the tablet decreased attention to the news broadcasts. As expected, negative tweets drew longer viewing times and elicited more attention to themselves than positive tweets. Negative tweets did not, however, decrease attention to the news broadcasts. Taken together, the present results demonstrate a negativity bias exists for social media messages in media multitasking; however, this effect does not amplify the overall detrimental effects of media multitasking.

The effects of social information on the enjoyment of online videos: An eye tracking study on the role of attention

“…They found that participants looked longer at negative Tweets than positive Tweets. In addition, participants recalled negative Tweets better than positive Tweets (Kätsyri et al, 2016). This further corroborates the negativity bias with regard to social information, but again in a context in which the social information has a high visibility (second screen) and in which the relevance of the social information to the main content is clear.…”

“…Studies show that people are more likely to select negative news articles than positive news articles (Trussler & Soroka, 2014). More importantly, Kätsyri, Kinnunen, Kusumoto, Oittinen, and Ravaja (2016) investigated individuals' attention to secondary social information about online news videos in the form of Tweets appearing on a tablet. They found that participants looked longer at negative Tweets than positive Tweets.…”

Problematic social media use and depressive symptoms among U.S. young adults: A nationally-representative study

“…Media multitasking has been associated with negative health outcomes in the past (Becker et al, 2013; Rosen et al, 2013). One reason for this could be the increased exposure to negative content that elicits more attention and for longer durations (Katsyri et al, 2016). It may also be that SMU frequency is technology-related, such that how an individual accesses social media is driving this association rather than the social media exposure itself.…”

Approaching Fake News at the Expense of Truth: A Psychophysiological Study of News on Social Media

“…Studies that have applied LC4MP to SM have found appetitive responses to positive and negative messages [1]. Other studies have found that individuals are more likely to engage with negative information on Twitter [10]. These results on emotional valence or arousal but did not factor in an individual's a priori beliefs.…”