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While different factors such as multitasking have been brought up as explanations, direct and fair comparisons of learning outcomes between social and traditional news media are missing. This two-wave field experiment (N1\u2009=\u2009902, N2\u2009=\u2009663) shows that whereas participants receiving information on social media did learn less than participants receiving the same information through an email newsletter, this difference disappeared when cognitive elaboration on social media was triggered through elaboration questions. Correlational analyses further suggest that multitasking is one factor which hinders successful knowledge acquisition on social media. Our findings suggest that learning through social media is possible if social media contents invite cognitively elaborate processing.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1093\/jcmc\/zmaf014","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,7,31]],"date-time":"2025-07-31T19:58:53Z","timestamp":1753991933000},"source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":3,"title":["How cognitive elaboration fosters knowledge acquisition on social media\u2014a field experiment"],"prefix":"10.1093","volume":"30","author":[{"given":"Luna T","family":"Frauhammer","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Human-Centered Computing and Cognitive Science, University of Duisburg-Essen , Duisburg,","place":["Germany"]}]},{"given":"Jana H","family":"Dreston","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Human-Centered Computing and Cognitive Science, University of Duisburg-Essen , Duisburg,","place":["Germany"]}]}],"member":"286","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,7,31]]},"reference":[{"key":"2025073115584990800_zmaf014-B1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"123","DOI":"10.1086\/314317","article-title":"Knowledge calibration: What consumers know and what they think they know","volume":"27","author":"Alba","year":"2000","journal-title":"Journal of Consumer Research"},{"key":"2025073115584990800_zmaf014-B2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"629","DOI":"10.1257\/aer.20190658","article-title":"The welfare effects of social media","volume":"110","author":"Allcott","year":"2020","journal-title":"American Economic Review"},{"key":"2025073115584990800_zmaf014-B3","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"3","DOI":"10.1093\/joc\/jqac034","article-title":"Do people learn about politics on social media? 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