Public Intimacy: Disclosure Interpretation and Social Judgments on Facebook

Abstract

This research examines how sociotechnical affordances shape interpretation of disclosure and social judgments on social networking sites. Drawing on the disclosure personalism framework, Study 1 revealed that information unavailability and relational basis underlay personalistic judgments about Facebook disclosures: Perceivers inferred greater message and relational intimacy from disclosures made privately than from those made publicly. Study 2 revealed that perceivers judged intimate disclosures shared publicly as less appropriate than intimate disclosures shared privately, and that perceived disclosure appropriateness accounted for the effects of public versus private contexts on reduced liking for a discloser. Taken together, the results show how sociotechnical affordances shape perceptions of disclosure and relationships, which has implications for understanding relational development and maintenance on SNS.

Ambient intimacy on Twitter

“…Under these circumstances, a higher level of perceived disclosure intimacy was found to be positively correlated to the development of ambient intimacy, which is in line with previous findings (Altman & Taylor, 1973;Rains et al, 2014;Utz, 2015b). Perhaps, similar to the results in Cozby's (1972) study, it is possible to observe a reverse U-shaped relationship between perceived disclosure intimacy and ambient intimacy: A certain level of disclosure intimacy is good for promoting ambient intimacy, but highly intimate self-disclosure, when perceived as inappropriate, would probably backfire (Bazarova, 2012).…”

“…When it comes to broadcasting self-disclosure on social media, Bazarova (2012) found that intimate selfdisclosure in public might be treated as inappropriate and therefore reduced social attraction. Baruh and Cemalcılar (2015) found that intimate self-disclosure on Twitter had negative effects on interpersonal attraction, even though high-intimacy disclosure attracted more attention compared to low-intimacy disclosure.…”

“…Bazarova (2012) proposed that broadcasting intimate self-disclosure online is often perceived as inappropriate. In this study, we found that participants treated most of the tweets from their followees as appropriate.…”

Social Media and Alcohol: Summary of Research, Intervention Ideas and Future Study Directions

“…A simple example is that the design elements of a chair suggest to a person that the object could be used for sitting. An affordance approach can be useful for research and intervention design because while popular websites may change, issues that may arise with use of these websites can be predicted by considering key concepts such as anonymity that are inherent in the design of the website (Bazarova, 2011;Choi & Toma, 2014;Halpern & Gibbs, 2013;Steinfield, Ellison, & Lampe, 2008).…”

An experimental test of the effects of online and face-to-face feedback on self-esteem

“…Disclosure has a significant role in online impression formation (e.g., Antheunis, Valkenburg, & Peter, 2007), the development of intimacy (Bazarova, 2012), and friendship quality (Valkenburg & Peter, 2009a). Less, however, is known about the communication dynamics surrounding self-disclosure in online interaction, that is, the responses that people receive to their online self-disclosure.…”