Public policy and administration debates typically assume that ICT tools, including social networking services (SNS), increase the amount of information that is communicated and thus harnessed for policymaking processes. At the same time, behavioral approaches point to the potentially detrimental effects of social media stress resulting from an overexposure to SNS. Because systematic research on the individual-level effects of SNS in policy formulation is rare, this paper explores the effect of SNS on the use of policy-relevant information and, thus, on individual political capacities. A moderated mediation analysis was performed based on survey data from central ministerial bureaucracies in Germany, Italy, and Norway, considering not only the amount of information utilized in legislative drafting but also the variability and concentration of the information sources. The results indicate that SNS positively relate to policy officials’ information use, which, in turn, increases their self-reported political capacities. However, the positive relationship between SNS and both the amount and the variability of information use was found to be diminished when levels of social media stress are high rather than low. The conclusions discuss the implications for civil servants and policymaking.

公共政策和行政辩论通常假设信息通信技术工具，包括社交网络服务 (SNS)，增加了交流的信息量，从而可用于决策过程。与此同时，行为方法指出了过度接触社交网络造成的社交媒体压力的潜在有害影响。由于关于 SNS 在政策制定中对个人层面影响的系统研究很少，本文探讨了 SNS 对政策相关信息的使用以及个人政治能力的影响。根据德国、意大利和挪威中央部级官僚机构的调查数据进行了有调节的调解分析，不仅考虑了立法起草中使用的信息量，还考虑了信息来源的可变性和集中度。结果表明，社交网络与政策官员的信息使用呈正相关，这反过来又提高了他们自我报告的政治能力。然而，当社交媒体压力水平较高而不是较低时，SNS 与信息使用的数量和可变性之间的正相关关系会减弱。结论讨论了对公务员和政策制定的影响。