Appetizer or main dish? Explaining the use of Facebook news posts as a substitute for other news sources

An increasing number of, especially younger, users use Facebook as their primary source for news about political and societal issues. At the same time, research suggests that Facebook use contributes to societal knowledge gaps. Against this background, we investigate the antecedents of using Facebook as a substitute for other news sources. We argue that exposure to news posts on Facebook increases the feeling of being well-informed, regardless of actual knowledge acquisition. This might lead users, especially those with a low need for cognition (NfC), to use Facebook as a substitute for other news sources. We test these assumptions with an online survey (n = 390) of German Internet users. Results show that the feeling of being well-informed through Facebook is reinforced by the quantity of exposure to news content on Facebook but not by the amount of actually read news posts. The feeling of being informed is an important predictor of using Facebook news as a substitute. Low NfC fosters this effect. It makes the substitution of other news sources more likely-but only for moderate to high levels of feeling well-informed through Facebook. We discuss these results in the light of their societal consequences.