  Many people now watch health videos, such as diet, exercise, mental health,
COVID-19, and chronic disease videos, on social media. Most existing studies
focused on video creators, leaving the motivations and practices of viewers
underexplored. We interviewed 18 participants, surveyed 121 respondents, and
derived a model characterizing consumers' video consumption practices on social
media. The practices include five main activities: deciding to watch videos
driven by various motivations, accessing videos on social media through a
socio-technical ecosystem, watching videos to meet informational, emotional,
and entertainment needs, evaluating the credibility and interestingness of
videos, and using videos to achieve health goals. Through an iterative video
consumption process, individuals strategically navigate across multiple
platforms, seeking better accessibility, higher reliability, and cultivating a
stronger motivation. They actively look for longer and more in-depth videos. We
further identified challenges consumers face while consuming health videos on
social media and discussed design implications and directions for future
research.
