Media literacy intervention effects on young adults’ decision making about substance use-related social media messages

Young adults often encounter and share misinformation in desirable social media messages. This process, challenging to disrupt, can contribute to substance misuse. This study tested whether a novel, meme-style, infographic-based media literacy intervention could mitigate effects of appealing but misleading substance use-related social media content for U.S. adults aged 18-29 (<i>N</i> = 1201). Results of a mixed between-subjects factorial, post-test-only online experiment detected small effects on expectancies for tobacco use among adults aged 18-20 and on intent to avoid sharing misinformation among adults aged 27-29. These age differences suggest that media literacy interventions can benefit by segmenting strategies according to cognitive and emotional communication processes that are associated with neurocognitive and social characteristics of young adults. For example, emerging adults may benefit from digital messages that focus on refuting short-term emotional benefits offered by social media misinformation. Adults in their late-20s may be interested in the logical ramifications of sharing misinformation.