Research On Influencing Factors Of Cancer Information Avoidance Behavior Among Elderly Users On Social Media

During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period,our country will enter from mild aging to moderate aging,and actively dealing with population aging has gradually become a national strategy.In the information society,aging and digitalization are intertwined and accompanied by the most concerned health information of the elderly,giving rise to a number of issues,among which the incidence of cancer is highly correlated with age growth,thus attracting more attention.Therefore,as a health communication topic,this study takes the Planned Risk Information Avoidance model(PRIA)as the analytical framework and takes the elderly users of social media as the research object to explore the influencing factors of the elderly users’ cancer information avoidance behavior.In this paper,questionnaire survey as a research method,divided into five chapters to explore.Combined with the research background,the introduction reviews the relevant literature,and determines the research questions,hypotheses and frameworks.The first chapter carries on the concrete model building,questionnaire design,model analysis and hypothesis testing.Specifically,combining the planned risk information avoidance model(PRIA)with the characteristics of health information behavior in older adults,This paper forms an extended model of planned risk information avoidance,which consists of nine constructs:"Information Avoidance Norms","Cancer Information Seeking Attitude","Social Media Self-efficacy","Cancer Knowledge Perception","Insufficient Perception of Cancer Knowledge","Affective Risk Response","Cancer Fatalism","Trust in Online Health Information" and "Cancer Information Avoidance Behavior".Based on this,21 hypotheses related to cancer information avoidance behavior are proposed.The second chapter,based on data analysis,verifies the hypothesis and finds the relationship among subjective norms of information avoidance,social media self-efficacy,social media information trust,cancer fatalism and cancer information avoidance behavior,cancer information seeking attitude,and risk emotional response.Chapter 3,Chapter 4 and Chapter 5 discuss the information avoidance behavior of elderly users on social media from three perspectives,namely avoidance style,cultural implication behind avoidance and expansion of PRIA model.The study found that 17 of the 21 hypotheses were supported,showing complex relationships between the constructs.As the dependent variable of PRIA model,cancer information avoidance behavior is affected by subjective norms of information avoidance,social media self-efficacy,social media information trust,cancer fatalism and other variables.From the perspective of social culture,cognition and emotion,they provide an ideal anchor point for understanding the motivation of cancer information avoidance behavior in elderly users.In addition to the guiding dependent variable,the structural equation model also helps to understand the relationship between various constructs.For example,the subjective norm of information avoidance as a key antecedent variable also significantly affects the emotional response to risk,the trust of social media information,and the insufficient perception of cancer knowledge,which become a relational force that cannot be ignored.In addition,both "social media information trust" and "cancer fatalism" were significantly correlated with social media self-efficacy,indicating that the current trend of "digitalization" and "aging" interlocking has affected the elderly’s view of disease and life.Based on the above findings,when discussing the avoidance behavior of health information of elderly users on social media,firstly,multiple avoidance strategies should be adopted to understand the implications behind them.Online avoidance,active avoidance,passive avoidance,and even the possibility of non-avoidance are all helpful to more comprehensively outline the panorama of health information processing behavior of elderly users.Secondly,among the elderly,their long-term cultural infiltration,accumulation of life experience and social interaction with their peers have shaped their complex and contradictory attitudes towards cancer information.Cancer fatalism integrates the experience and cultural concepts of Chinese elderly users in the face of cancer information,and gradually forms a secret consensus on avoiding cancer information when communicating with friends.Finally,this paper describes the applicability and explanatory power of PRIA in the Chinese context with the help of "situation nesting".It absorbs the information choice of the elderly,and combines the information scene of cancer issues to understand the information processing behavior of the elderly users more closely,and integrates the cultural resources such as cancer fatalism in this area.And integrate it into PRIA model organically to complete the cross-context dialogue of the theory.Make not only its common,but also highlight the particularity.