Browsing is learning? Multilayered Mediating Effects of Social Media Use on Political Knowledge Illusions among Chinese teenagers.sav

In the era of information overload, teenagers’ social media use offers them objective political knowledge. However, it risks overestimations of their own knowledge and thus knowledge illusions. This study, which draws on information processing strategies and cognitive mediation models, uses survey data from five Chinese cities to explore the mechanisms underlying the effect of social media use on political knowledge illusions among teenagers. Both news-oriented and entertainment-oriented social media use decrease political knowledge illusions among teenagers. News-oriented use has direct effects, mediated effects via central path processing, and chain-mediated effects on knowledge illusions. Conversely, entertainment-oriented use affects knowledge illusions via both edge processing pathway and central processing pathway and has three fully chain-mediated effects. Unlike traditional approaches, which have emphasized both subjective and objective political knowledge, this article introduces the concept of "political knowledge illusion," thereby innovatively explaining individuals’ information processing strategies by linking social media use with knowledge illusions.