The COVID-19 pandemic amplified the influence of information reporting on human behavior, as people were forced to quickly adapt to a new health threatening situation by relying on new information. Drawing from protection-motivation and cognitive load theories, we formulated a structural model eliciting the impact of the three online information sources: (1) social media, (2) official websites, and (3) other online news sources; on motivation to adopt recommended COVID-19 preventive measures. The model was tested with the data collected from university employees and students (n = 225) in March 2020 through an online survey and analyzed using partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). We observed that social media and other online news sources increased information overload amongst the online information sources. This, in turn, negatively affected individuals' self-isolation intention by increasing perceived response costs and decreasing response efficacy. The study highlights the role of online information sources on preventive behaviors during pandemics.

COVID-19 大流行扩大了信息报告对人类行为的影响，因为人们被迫依靠新信息迅速适应新的威胁健康的情况。借鉴保护动机和认知负荷理论，我们制定了一个结构模型，引出三个在线信息源的影响：(1) 社交媒体，(2) 官方网站，和 (3) 其他在线新闻源；关于采取推荐的 COVID-19 预防措施的动机。该模型在 2020 年 3 月通过在线调查从大学员工和学生 (n = 225) 收集的数据进行了测试，并使用偏最小二乘结构方程模型 (PLS-SEM) 进行了分析。我们观察到社交媒体和其他在线新闻来源增加了在线信息来源中的信息过载。这反过来，通过增加感知反应成本和降低反应效能，对个人的自我隔离意图产生负面影响。该研究强调了在线信息源对大流行期间预防行为的作用。