Oversharing on social network sites: Self-Disclosure that leads to regret

Social network sites (SNS) are a part of world culture, with one in four people in the world connected on Facebook alone. A lot of the content on SNS is user-generated content, including user self-disclosure, which has been shown to have many positive outcomes: the creation of social relationships, developing social capital, and finding romance and work. Nonetheless, negative outcomes of user self-disclosure are also experienced, from damage to relationships, loss of jobs, and even physical attacks. This dissertation examines voluntary self-disclosures that lead to negative outcomes for the user. Our top Information Systems journal contain research that has investigated self-disclosure on SNS. Yet even though there is a common source of the theoretical underpinnings of self-disclosure in this Information Systems research, the measurement of self-disclosure has been incomplete or is not measuring self-disclosure in a way that is consistent with the theoretical definition of self-disclosure. The common theoretical foundation of self-disclosure in Information Systems research is a multi-dimensional construct consisting of intent, amount, depth, honesty, and valence, which are not just distinct dimensions, but also independent dimensions. However, previous Information Systems research has either examined a single dimension of self-disclosure, ignoring four of self-disclosure’s dimensions and losing the opportunity to understand the complete theoretical dimensionality of self-disclosure, or has combined the five dimensions of self-disclosure into one dimension for analysis, thus losing the opportunity to understand the independent nature of self-disclosure dimensions. These two approaches, which violated the theoretical definition of self-disclosure from which these Information Systems studies were based upon, inspired the first study in this dissertation, which is a comparison of all the scales utilized in those Information Systems’ studies to determine their relation to each other and their original, inspirational, self-disclosure scales. With the overall impetus for this dissertation based upon identifying user motivations that correlate to negative consequences for SNS self-disclosure, an investigation into the literature revealed the concept of oversharing, which has been traditionally researched as revealing too much information when using technology. A well-cited qualitative study by Wang et al. (2011) discusses five drivers, or motivations, of social network self-disclosure messages that the participants stated had led to regret for the participants. With experienced regret as the indicator that some negative consequence has occurred for the user, the Wang et al. (2011) motivations are the basis for second study, which develops an instrument that adapts four of those motivations using previously psychometrically validated instruments, and is also the basis for the third study, which analyzes the stated motivations with regards to the occurrence of regret when posting on SNS. In the first essay, I investigated the instruments used within the IS “basket of eight” journal to study SNS self-disclosure. I show evidence that the instruments used to measure SNS self-disclosure either do not measure all the theoretical constructs of self-disclosure to a degree necessary to infer the effects of the antecedents on SNS self-disclosure or that the measurement method used to measure all the dimensions of SNS self-disclosure obscured the ability to see effects on all the measured dimensions. Additionally, at least one instrument does not load onto any previously defined self-disclosure dimensions. The first essay calls for future IS research into self-disclosure to understand all the dimensions of SNS self-disclosure, as self-disclosure can have positive and negative consequences, and understanding SNS self-disclosure antecedents is important for platforms and users. The second study gathered data to develop a social network sharing regret instrument with the goal of extending the work that Wang et al. (2011) started with their qualitative study. The instrument examines different constructs that measure the five dimensions that the Wang et al. (2011) study participants stated as the antecedents, or motivations, for user posts on SNS that cause regret. The motivations are posting with good intentions, posting to be cool, posting to be funny at another’s expense, posting to be funny at one’s own expense, posting without thought, and the tendency to be inclined towards disinhibition while in a “hot” emotional state. One of the dimensional instruments, (“hot” emotional states) is used as previously designed, as it measures a trait. The other four instruments are adapted from previously developed scales to fit the context of posting behavior on SNS. The third study uses the instrument produced in the second study to evaluate the predictive validity in predicting the occurrence of SNS regret associated with the motivations identified in Wang et al. 2011. The third study involves the administration of the scale, with an examination of participants posting frequency of posts that caused regret. Additionally, the role of the self-disclosure intent dimension is examined as a moderator of those motivations.

Embargo status: Restricted until 09/2027. To request the author grant access, click on the PDF link to the left.