Generation Z's Health Information Avoidance Behavior: Insights From Focus Group Discussions.

BACKGROUND: Younger generations actively use social media to access health information. However, research shows that they also avoid obtaining health information online at times when confronted with uncertainty. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to examine the phenomenon of health information avoidance among Generation Z, a representative cohort of active web users in this era. METHODS: Drawing on the planned risk information avoidance model, we adopted a qualitative approach to explore the factors related to information avoidance within the context of health and risk communication. The researchers recruited 38 participants aged 16 to 25 years for the focus group discussion sessions. RESULTS: In this study, we sought to perform a deductive qualitative analysis of the focus group interview content with open, focused, and theoretical coding. Our findings support several key components of the planned risk information avoidance model while highlighting the underlying influence of cognition on emotions. Specifically, socioculturally, group identity and social norms among peers lead some to avoid health information. Cognitively, mixed levels of risk perception, conflicting values, information overload, and low credibility of information sources elicited their information avoidance behaviors. Affectively, negative emotions such as anxiety, frustration, and the desire to stay positive contributed to avoidance. CONCLUSIONS: This study has implications for understanding young users' information avoidance behaviors in both academia and practice.

A Bibliometric Analysis and Review of Nudge Research Using VOSviewer.

With growing demands of decision making in the current era, the impact of the drivers behind individuals' preferences and institutional strategies becomes prominent. Coined in 2008, nudge is used to describe incentives for individuals' choices with foreseeable outcomes but without exclusion of alternative choices or reliance on financial stimuli. Consequently, nudge and its application in real-world situations led to a prosperous surge of studies in multiple disciplines. However, we are still facing a dearth of in-depth understanding of the status quo and future directions of research on nudge in a comprehensive fashion. To address the gap in knowledge, the present study adopted a bibliometric analysis of the existing literature related to the investigation and application of nudge by analyzing 1706 publications retrieved from Web of Science. The results indicated that (a) being a relatively newly developed theory, interest in nudge in academia has expanded both in volume and disciplines, with Western scholars and behavioral economists as the backbones; (b) future studies in nudge-related fields are expected to consolidate its current frontiers in individual behaviors while shedding light on new territories such as the digitalized environment. By incorporating state-of-the-art technologies to investigate extant research, the present study would be pivotal for the holistic understanding of the studies on nudge in recent years. Nevertheless, the inclusiveness and comprehensiveness of the review were limited by the size of the selected literature.