Asymmetric Consumptive News Feed Curation? Examining How Perceived News Feed Performance Influences Boosting and Limiting Curation on Facebook

This study examines how perceived news feed performance (i.e., perceived news feed quality and valence) shapes consumptive news feed curation, defined as a type of social media consumption behavior by which users inform algorithms about what they want to see in their news feeds. Results from a survey in the United States ( N = 1,525) show that both perceived quality and valence of news feed were associated with consumptive news feed curation on Facebook. However, an asymmetric pattern emerged in that perceived news feed performance was only related to boosting behavior but not limiting behavior. Furthermore, the level of news feed diversity moderated the identified associations above. We revealed that the associations between perceived news feed quality and boosting curation were statistically stronger when the news feed was more diverse; when the news feed was less diverse, perceived negativity of the news feed was positively related to limiting curation; when the news feed became diverse, perceived negativity was negatively related to boosting curation.