*1.5. Social Media News*

Finally, with the rise of mobile technology, accessing news and information on social media has become commonplace and frequent [48]. In 2019, 53% of U.S. adults received news from social media, up from 47% in 2018 [48]. While social media share traditional media's ability to provide news to users [49], social media have unique characteristics that are markedly different from traditional forms of media. First, while traditional media are defined as either textual media (e.g., newspapers) or audiovisual media (e.g., television news), social media provide a combination of modality (i.e., both textual and audiovisual mode). Social media users can share dramatic multimedia clips about apparent health risks using video sharing sites such as YouTube [21], many of which are unverified. Second, social media are highly personalized platforms, connecting users with similar interests, often with personal or professional relationships [50]. Social media can reflect a social endorsement from 'people like me' via established social contacts (e.g., Facebook) or through like-minded individuals (e.g., Twitter). This aspect of social media allows for the rapid spread of misinformation [51] because users rely on social endorsement [52] rather than verified information. According to a report from the Pew Research Center, those who get most of their news from social media reported seeing at least some misinformation about the COVID-19 outbreak [53]. These same news consumers said media have exaggerated the threat posed by COVID-19.

All of these features of social media may have caused the discourse on social media concerning COVID-19 to be emotionally arousing and stressful. Prior research shows higher levels of emotional distress among social media news users than other media users. One study showed that individuals who consumed news solely from news feeds, or news feeds plus online news websites, had higher rates of neuroticism (feeling anxious or depressed/worried) compared to participants consuming news exclusively offline [54]. Another study compared post-traumatic stress one month after Hurricane Sandy among those who learned about the disaster through traditional media (television, newspapers, and radio) versus those who learned about it through social media (Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter; [21]). The researchers found that posttraumatic stress was higher in those using social media relative to those using only traditional media. This could be because social media exert direct and personal impact, owing to the type of content being shared, compared to traditional media that provide more 'objective' information.

The modality of social media (i.e., combination of audiovisual and textual information), its endorsement functions (i.e., likes, shares), and the lack of gatekeeping of information sources circulated on social media may strengthen emotional responses in those who rely on this as a source for news. Accordingly, we predict the following hypotheses:

**Hypothesis 6.** *Accounting for information seeking about COVID-19, consuming news via social media will be related to increased emotional distress.*

**Hypothesis 7.** *The association between COVID-19 information seeking and emotional distress will be moderated by social media news use, with the association between information seeking and emotional distress stronger for individuals with higher social media news use.*

### **2. Methods**

#### *2.1. Data*

Responding to widespread "community transmission" within the U.S. (the virus being transmitted by individuals with no travel history) in mid-March 2020, a survey was rapidly assembled and collected by a cross-disciplinary team of researchers at a large Midwestern university. Data were collected from 26 March to 1 April 2020 using a Qualtrics panel, a representative sample of U.S. residents based on a pre-recruited pool of panelists (*n* = 2251). This sample also contained a probability sub-sample of residents of the Midwestern state in which the sponsoring university is located. Participants had a mean age of 46.6 (*SD* = 17.0), 58.2% were female, and 68.9% were white. In terms of education, 22.4% had some high

school education or a high school diploma, 21.4% had some college education but no degree, 35.8% had an associate's or bachelor's degree, and 20.4% had an advanced degree.
