PurposeIn China, it is prevalent for parents to share health information on WeChat and receive feedback from their children. This study aims to investigate the feedback from younger generations regarding their parents’ health information sharing. It will examine the different types of feedback, explore the factors influencing it and analyze the outcomes that result from this feedback exchange.Design/methodology/approachThe empirical findings draw on the qualitative analysis using grounded theory. This study collects data from 34 participants (17 pairs of one young person and one parent) through in-depth interviews and WeChat chat records. Then, a theoretical model was developed through open, axial and selective coding.FindingsFeedback can be classified into five types: support, correction, perfunctoriness, ostracism and rejection as well as into “Affective-Behavioral-Cognitive” dimensions. Younger generations’ feedback types are influenced by a variety of factors, including information, emotion and individual and family-related factors. Each feedback type has distinct effects, such as altering older generations’ emotional and communication responses.Originality/valueThis pioneering study explores how younger generations in China perceive their parents’ health information sharing on social media. It highlights the importance of feedback in this context, providing actionable insights to enhance digital literacy among older adults, strengthen family bonds and enhance the spread of valuable and scientific health information online.

PurposeOnline health communities can be both supportive and vulnerable and highly rely on stable engagement from core members. Understanding the factors affecting core member churn is vital. This study examines a hair-loss-related online health community, taking a meso-level community approach. It investigates how users’ potential social capital, proactive social engagement and received social support in the community influence their churn.Design/methodology/approachThis study collected the complete dataset spanning 13 years from a hair-loss-related online health community in mainland China. It identified 4,270 core users with over ten posted messages each, along with their associated text. Social network analysis and survival analysis were then used to calculate user node centrality and create a hazard model for user churn.FindingsThe findings indicate that increased social capital and social support can help prevent churn. However, higher social engagement alone does not directly reduce users’ likelihood to withdraw. Instead, users are more likely to stay in the community when highly engaged if they also receive substantial social support. Social support emerges as a critical factor in this mechanism.Originality/valueThis study innovatively adopts a meso-level community perspective, investigating user churn within an online health community for individuals with a self-limiting condition – hair loss. The research probes the interactive effects of user engagement and social support on churn within the online health community. Advice on sustaining member participation is given based on the findings as well as Chinese culture.

PurposeHealth short videos are serving as a powerful tool for encouraging individuals to actively adopt healthier behaviors. The sensory cues applied in these videos can be useful for engaging peripheral processing and enhancing attitudes. While previous research has examined the effects of various single cues, this study features a pioneering attempt to explore the roles of audiovisual cross-modal correspondence, encompassing multisensory cues perceived through different modalities, in health communication.Design/methodology/approachA 2 (color: warm/cool) × 2 (music tempo: fast/slow) between-subjects experiment was conducted to observe 120 participants’ responses to a health short video promoting eye health that was created using four different combinations of background color and background music tempo.FindingsIt was found that the congruent color–tempo pairings, that is blue & slow and orange & fast, led to more positive attitudes toward the videos than the incongruent pairings, that is blue & fast and orange & slow. The effect of cross-modal correspondence on attitude was fully mediated by processing fluency, with gender acting as a moderator between the two variables. Furthermore, individuals’ attitudes toward a short video positively influenced their health behavioral intentions.Originality/valueThese findings not only lend support to the theoretical framework of “multisensory cues-fluency-attitude-intention” chain for persuasion purposes but also have practical implications for creating effective health short videos.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of multidimensional perceived value and perceived pressure on physicians’ continuous intention to use (CIU) online health communities (OHCs) based on perceived value (PV) theory and conservation of resources (COR) theory. Design/methodology/approach This study developed a research model to test the proposed hypotheses, and the proposed model was tested using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) for which data were collected from 481 physicians with OHC experience using an online survey. Findings The empirical results show the following: (1) Physicians’ CIU is influenced by perceived value and perceived pressure, with attitude towards OHCs using (ATU) playing a crucial role in the pathways. (2) Additional value, work pressure, peer pressure and social pressure have a positive impact on CIU, with consultation value, relationship value, work pressure and peer pressure positively influencing CIU through ATU as a mediator. (3) Reputation value has a positive effect on CIU moderated by seniority (online seniority and offline seniority). Originality/value This study emphasises the importance of different dimensions of perceived value and perceived pressure in CIU. Meanwhile, we broaden the research scope of PV theory and COR theory and provide inspiration to OHC managers and healthcare institution managers.

Purpose The study explores how mobile governance affects the administrative burden on older adults, focusing on learning, psychological and compliance costs. Design/methodology/approach Using attribution theory, the research employs a quantitative research design, utilizing surveys to gather data from 516 older adults across three cities in China: Quzhou, Wuhan and Shanghai. The study examines how intrinsic factors and extrinsic factors of m-government interfaces impact older adults’ administrative burden. Findings Perceived complexity increases learning, psychological and compliance costs for older adults. Personalization and high-quality information decrease these costs, enhancing user satisfaction. Visual appeal decreases anxiety and psychological costs. Originality/value This research links attribution theory with m-government’s administrative burden on older adults, offering new insights into optimizing m-government to serve older adults better.

Purpose Instrumental and emotional information influence paradoxically on people’s decision-making, and similar influences are more evident in e-commerce scenarios where physical information is limited. This study aims to construct a systematic explanatory framework for the influence of multidimensional recommendation information diversity (RID) on users' click and purchase decisions based on the social support theory (SST). Design/methodology/approach This study analyses 453,176 data from 67,079 users of a Chinese e-commerce platform, applying lasso algorithmic techniques and cross-fit partialling-out (XPO) regression for empirical analysis. Findings The study finds that instrumental support information diversity (ISID) and emotional support information diversity (ESID) play divergent roles, and that the effects of both on user decision-making are inconsistent with mode-flip and marginal change. Differences in users' information craving and information overload processing mechanisms for instrumental and emotional information, leading to an inverted U-shaped effect of ISID on consumption decisions, while ESID has a U-shaped effect. Additionally, supplier certification eliminates the marginal change in ESID, and products with a high information standardisation degree eliminate the marginal change in ISID. Originality/value Research results reveal the opposing roles of the two types of RID and the application boundaries of their roles, providing empirical evidence for academic research.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the factors influencing user adoption behavior in the context of conflicting health information, thereby contributing to the understanding of users' information decision-making and adoption processes within intricate information environments. Furthermore, this research endeavors to offer guidance for mitigating the adverse effects of contradictory health information on users' cognitive perceptions. Design/methodology/approach First, this study used literature coding to identify factors that influence user adoption behavior in the context of conflicting health information. Secondly, we utilized the Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) method to unveil the key influencing factors based on centrality and causality. Lastly, utilizing the Interpretive Structural Model (ISM), we constructed the multilevel hierarchical structure model of influencing factors to delineate the relationships among factors across different levels. Findings The key causal factors influencing user adoption behavior in the context of conflicting health information include user basic characteristics, experience accumulation, and information type. The key result factors consist of psychological emotion, perceived trade-offs, and the source credibility. The significant elements include users' psychological emotions, perceived trade-offs, emotional support, source credibility, and informational support. Furthermore, user adoption behavior in the context of conflicting health information is a manifestation of the interplay among surface-level, mid-level, and deep-level factors. Research limitations/implications Theoretically, this paper enriches the existing relevant theoretical framework and offers a novel perspective for further investigation into user adoption behavior concerning conflicting health information. Practically, this study extracts factors that can influence user adoption behavior in the context of conflicting health information which is an essential reference value for guiding and optimizing user adoption behavior. Originality/value This paper expands the system of factors influencing user adoption behavior in the context of conflicting health information from individual, information and social perspectives. Utilizing DEMATEL quantitative analysis and ISM multilevel hierarchical models, this research examines and illustrates the significance of the influencing factors and their interrelationships.

Purpose With the remarkable capability to reach the public instantly, social media has become integral in sharing scholarly articles to measure public response. Since spamming by bots on social media can steer the conversation and present a false public interest in given research, affecting policies impacting the public’s lives in the real world, this topic warrants critical study and attention. Design/methodology/approach We used the Altmetric dataset in combination with data collected through the Twitter Application Programming Interface (API) and the Botometer API. We combined the data into an extensive dataset with academic articles, several features from the article and a label indicating whether the article had excessive bot activity on Twitter or not. We analyzed the data to see the possibility of bot activity based on different characteristics of the article. We also trained machine-learning models using this dataset to identify possible bot activity in any given article. Findings Our machine-learning models were capable of identifying possible bot activity in any academic article with an accuracy of 0.70. We also found that articles related to “Health and Human Science” are more prone to bot activity compared to other research areas. Without arguing the maliciousness of the bot activity, our work presents a tool to identify the presence of bot activity in the dissemination of an academic article and creates a baseline for future research in this direction. Research limitations/implications We considered the features available from the Altmetric dataset. It can be exciting research to extract additional features about the authors of the article, the location of the publication, international collaboration and other demographic features of the authors to see the relation of these features with bot activity. Practical implications Since public interest in scientific findings can shape the decisions of policymakers, it is essential to identify the possibility of bot activity in the dissemination of any given scholarly article. Without arguing whether the social bots are good or bad and without arguing about the validity of a scholarly article, our work proposes a tool to interpret the public interest in an article by identifying the possibility of bot activity toward an article. This work publishes the models and data generated through the study and provides a benchmark and guideline for future works in this direction. Originality/value While the majority of the existing research focuses on identifying and preventing bot activity on social media, our work is novel in predicting the possibility of bot activity in the dissemination of an academic article using Altmetric metadata for the article. Little work has been performed in this specific area, and the models developed from our research give policymakers and the public a tool to interpret and understand the public interest in a scientific publication with appropriate caution.

Purpose To explore the project-specific information-seeking pathways of Chinese parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and understand the information seeking in their daily lives. Design/methodology/approach This study utilized the interview, critical incident technique and information horizon mapping to gather data from 27 Chinese parents of children with ASD during project-specific information seeking. These data were then examined using content analysis and descriptive statistics methods. Findings First, the information-seeking pathways of parents of children with ASD show the significant importance of both interpersonal and online sources, characterized by the combined use of multiple types of information sources. Second, information-seeking pathways considerably vary across project contexts. For diagnosis and school selection, parents had fewer pathways and primarily relied on interpersonal sources. Meanwhile, they utilized interpersonal and online sources combined for selecting rehabilitation institutions and methods, with the most information-seeking pathways for rehabilitation methods. Originality/value This study presents novel insights into the information-seeking pathways of Chinese parents of children with ASD in seeking project-specific information. It provides valuable references for relevant governments and rehabilitation institutions in building information service platforms, strengthening information quality regulation and providing information resources for parents of children with ASD.

Purpose This study aims to develop an associative text analyzer (ATA) to support users in quickly grasping and interpreting the content of large amounts of text through text association recommendations, facilitating the identification of the contextual relationships between people, events, organization and locations for digital humanities. Additionally, by providing text summaries, the tool allows users to link between distant and close readings, thereby enabling more efficient exploration of related texts. Design/methodology/approach To verify the effectiveness of this tool in supporting exploration of historical texts, this study uses a counterbalanced design to compare the use of the digital humanities platform for Mr. Lo Chia-Lun’s Writings (DHP-LCLW) with and without the ATA to assist in exploring different aspects of text. The study investigated whether there were significant differences in effectiveness for exploring textual contexts and technological acceptance as well as used semi-structured in-depth interviews to understand the research participants’ viewpoints and experiences with the ATA. Findings The results of the experiment revealed that the effectiveness of text exploration using the DHP-LCLW with and without the ATA varied significantly depending on the topic of the text being explored. The DHP-LCLW with the ATA was found to be more suitable for exploring historical texts, while the DHP-LCLW without the ATA was more suitable for exploring educational texts. The DHP-LCLW with the DHP-LCLW was found to be significantly more useful in terms of perceived usefulness than the DHP-LCLW without the ATA, indicating that the research participants believed the ATA was more effective in helping them efficiently grasp the related texts and topics during text exploration. Practical implications The study’s practical implications lie in the development of an ATA for digital humanities, offering a valuable tool for efficiently exploring historical texts. The ATA enhances users’ ability to grasp and interpret large volumes of text, facilitating contextual relationship identification. Its practical utility is evident in the improved effectiveness of text exploration, particularly for historical content, as indicated by users’ perceived usefulness. Originality/value This study proposes an ATA for digital humanities, enhancing text exploration by offering association recommendations and efficient linking between distant and close readings. The study contributes by providing a specialized tool and demonstrating its perceived usefulness in facilitating efficient exploration of related texts in digital humanities.