Social Media Use for Health-Related Information and Self-Medication Practices among Youth: Cognitive Dissonance Perspective

Abstract

This research explores the relationship between social media use for health information and self-medication practices among youth and focuses on the mediating role of knowledge of medicines. By adopting cognitive dissonance theory, specifically this research aims to understand how the extent to which conflicting information from social media influences youth’s beliefs and behaviors regarding self-medication practices. An empirical study was conducted using an online survey method to collect data from 330 students representing youth at the University of Management and Technology Lahore, Pakistan. The descriptive analyses were performed using SPSS, while the effects were examined by Smart PLS software. The statistical results of direct effects show that social media use for health-related information significantly affects self-medication practice and knowledge of medicine risks. However, knowledge of medicine risks does not affect self-medication practices. The indirect effect results indicate that the relationship between variables is not statistically significant. This study concluded that increased use of social media among youth is associated with greater knowledge of medicine and more self-medication practices. However, knowledge of medicine risks does not impact their self-medication practices, because the degree of dissonance (importance and ratio) is low regarding knowledge of medicine risks compared to self-medication practices, indicating no inconsistency between their beliefs and behaviors. The research also provided valuable recommendations for health policymakers, media health communicators, and social media users, to address self-medication practices.