Mitigating the News-Finds-Me Perception: Evaluating the intended (and unintended) effects of educational warnings on political learning

Social media foster a News-Finds-Me perception (NFM), whereby individuals believe important news will “find them” without actively seeking it. Although the negative consequences of NFM are well-documented, strategies to mitigate NFM’s effects remain unexplored. In a pre-registered 3 (educational warning: general vs. personalized vs. control) ✕ 2 (NFM level: low vs. high) between-subjects experiment ( N = 405), we test whether general educational warnings (forewarning individuals about NFM and its detrimental outcomes) and personalized warnings (targeting specific NFM groups) affect political news learning and NFM reliance. Low-NFM participants exhibited greater political learning from news stories and greater intention to reduce NFM than high-NFM participants. Neither warning reduced these gaps. However, a personalized warning (vs. general) elicited stronger defensive reactions among high-NFM participants, which in turn negatively predicted political learning and intention to reduce NFM. These findings underscore the need to thoughtfully develop intervention strategies that avoid triggering unintended reactions among high-NFM individuals.