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BMC Public Health
Published in: BMC Public Health 1/2024

Open Access 01-12-2024 | COVID-19 | Research

Social media heterogeneity and preventive behaviours during the COVID-19 outbreak: a survey on online shopping

Authors: Hu Xue, Xiaoning Li, Yuye Yang, Ying Liu, Xianhui Geng

Published in: BMC Public Health | Issue 1/2024

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Abstract

Background

Residents’ adoption of preventive behaviours proved beneficial in preventing the large-scale transmission of the virus during the early stages of the COVID-19 outbreak. It is critical to investigate how social media triggers residents' preventive behaviour decisions during the COVID-19 outbreak.

Methods

This paper selected online shopping as a specific preventive behaviour for empirical investigation. An online cross-sectional survey was conducted through the Sojump website from 1 to 15 March 2020, and a total of 1,289 valid questionnaires were collected from China. This paper uses multiple regression analysis to investigate the heterogeneous impacts of different information sources on residents' online shopping willingness and online shopping behaviour and the heterogeneous impacts of different information content in social media on the transformation of residents' online shopping willingness and online shopping behaviour.

Results

The findings indicate that both official-media and self-media positively promote residents' online shopping willingness and behaviour, with official-media having a stronger promotional effect than self-media. Furthermore, official-media and self-media can collaboratively promote residents' online shopping willingness and online shopping behaviour. The ease-of-use and usefulness of information significantly promoted the transformation of residents' online shopping willingness.

Conclusions

This study analyses the heterogeneous impacts of social media on residents' preventive behaviours from the perspectives of information source differentiation and information content differentiation, which enriches related studies and provides feasible paths for promoting residents' preventive behaviours.
Appendix
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Metadata
Title
Social media heterogeneity and preventive behaviours during the COVID-19 outbreak: a survey on online shopping
Authors
Hu Xue
Xiaoning Li
Yuye Yang
Ying Liu
Xianhui Geng
Publication date
01-12-2024
Publisher
BioMed Central
Keyword
COVID-19
Published in
BMC Public Health / Issue 1/2024
Electronic ISSN: 1471-2458
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-024-18253-y

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