"Attention! It’s the News.” Cognitive Load and News Posts on Facebook: An Eye-tracking Study

Individuals get much of their news and information through social media. Thus, it has become crucial to evaluate how they are paying attention to and processing news content in this saturated space. The present study investigates users’ visual engagement with news posts on Facebook using cognitive load theory of attention. An eye-tracking device was used to track visual attention of N = 152 participants. Following a 3 x 2 between-subjects factorial design, we manipulated intrinsic cognitive load by varying the story topic (either health or science) and the extraneous load by varying the presentation type (text only, video only, or video with text). Cognitive load does impact attention, such that those who viewed the video with text story (high cognitive load) exhibited higher visual attention to the content. We conclude that content higher in complexity elicits more attention compared to less complex content on Facebook.