زندگی خصوصی در شبکه های اجتماعی عمومی: اکتشاف خودافشاگری اعضا

In this article, the author examines voluntary self-disclosure phenomenon among social networking sites. Self-disclosure enables member interactions, service customizations, targeted marketing, and digital content generation; hence the level of self-disclosure is imperative to the success of social networking sites. Yet, members are often reluctant to reveal themselves despite their desire for socialization in the ever-increasingly popular cyber community. Drawing upon relevant literature, we developed a succinct research model that identifies key stimuli and inhibitors of member self-disclosure. These influences stem from personality traits (e.g., extroversion and privacy value), networking service attributes (e.g., perceived critical mass), and computing environments (e.g., perceived Internet risk). The research model was validated through survey data collected from 222 social networking site users and the analysis results provided support to the hypothesized relationships. The current study generates new knowledge concerning the roles that varying factors play in shaping members' self-disclosure; it also informs networking service providers about how to better encourage members to reveal themselves online.

Until recently, social networking sites have grown rapidly on the Internet. These sites allow members to create personal profiles, manage personal connections, and interact with other members with similar interests [9]. Due to the support in the management of personal networks, these websites have attracted millions of online users. As of February 2012, Pew Internet found that 66% of online adults use social networking sites [10]. Facebook alone, for example, attracted 995 million monthly active users in June 2012, with about 80% of users residing outside of the United States and Canada [26]. Social networking sites are considered by many as the “greatest invention of the past decade” [5] and the “best invention of the 21st century” [31]. These websites have made significant impacts on general society because they create brand new frontiers for interpersonal communications and interactions [36], [79] and [101]. Academia recognizes this impact; several research streams exist within the realm of social networking studies, including self-presentation [8] and [60], network topology [33] and [44], and adoption [80] and [84]. However, less is known about member self-disclosure. Self-disclosure refers to any personal information one shares with others [20]. This may include “any information exchange that refers to the self, including personal states, dispositions, events in the past, and plans for the future” [24]. New knowledge in this regard is imperative to the long-term sustainability of social networking sites for four reasons: First, member information that is released through self-disclosure lays the foundation for social interactions among site members. Without self-disclosure, members of a networking site may not be able to learn about each other; hence, the growth and expansion of personal networks will halt [39]. Second, self-disclosure enables social networking providers to collect and analyze member information and provide personalized services for improved user satisfaction. Third, social networking sites rely on advertising as their primary revenue source and advertisers need member information in order to offer customized ads for targeted marketing. Fourth, site members who engage in self-disclosure are likely to create user-generated-contents such as photos, videos, and blogs; these contents contribute to the wealth of an online community and subsequently attract new members, therefore allowing networking service providers to propagate their business models for greater success. Recent studies have confirmed that networking site members have become increasingly reluctant to reveal themselves [71]. Many users shy away from public attention and would rather keep their lives private when engaging in the “best known” public sphere in recent history. These members reveal little on their public profiles and resort to private channels or access-controlled interaction modes for information sharing with trusted friends only. Surprisingly, their pursuit of privacy does not necessarily result in an abandonment of social networks; members may still feel a strong sense of belonging and remain loyal to the networking sites. McKnight et al. put: “the level of information disclosure does not necessarily prohibit social network use” [63]. Due to this behavioral tendency, online business services and models that rely on member disclosure are in jeopardy. To date, prior literature has generated little empirical findings to uncover members' self-disclosure behavior and it remains largely unknown as to why one will expose or withhold his or her identity, likes, and dislikes on a public network [53], [54], [91] and [100]. Our study attempts to fill this research gap. This study answers the research question of “What are the key determinants of members' self-disclosure among social networking sites?” Drawing upon the theoretical model of Information Disclosure Behavior (IDB) [92] and the literature on social networking sites, we developed and validated a succinct research model that provided preliminary answers to our question. This research model separates an individual's perception of a social networking site from his or her behavioral preference of privacy disclosure; it makes a two-fold contribution. First, it validates the importance of member attitude in cultivating voluntary self-disclosure behavior on networking sites. In this study, attitude refers to an individual's positive evaluative effect about using a given social networking site. Existing literature about social networking has largely ignored the role of attitude; by surveying 222 users of social networks such as Facebook, MySpace, and Friendster, we found evidence that member attitude strongly promotes the extent of member self-disclosure. Our study also confirms that personality traits such as extroversion, service attributes such as perceived critical mass, and external environments such as perceived Internet risk jointly cultivate members' overall attitude. These aforementioned factors have been understudied within the context of social networking. Second, the current study probes the role that privacy values play in deterring site members from revealing themselves. Analyses of the survey data find that privacy value attenuates the relationship between attitude and self-disclosure. Privacy value has not been well studied within the context of social networking sites and our findings suggest that it accounts for the apparent paradox where Internet users strongly attach themselves to a networking site yet remain highly conservative in terms of self-disclosure. The rest of the paper is organized as follows: the subsequent section reviews the literature on social networking sites as well as the theoretical underpinning of the current study. Secondly, we present our research model along with the foundational research hypotheses. This section is followed by an elaboration upon research methodology and data analysis. We conclude the paper by discussing its theoretical contributions, managerial implications, limitations, and venues for future research.

Social networking sites are continually increasing in popularity. The latest Pew survey showed that, worldwide, 47% of online adults use social networking sites and 73% of teens and young adults are members of at least one social network [46]. A 2010 Nielsen report found that the world now spends over 110 billion minutes on social networks and that the number of people visiting these sites has increased by 24% over the last year [66]. To sustain the success of a social networking site, it is important that members reveal themselves to initiate social interactions and propel the expansion of personal networks. In addition, self-disclosure enables personalized services, offers target marketing, and encourages digital content generation. Despite strategic importance from a business standpoint, site members still choose to control the extent of their personal self-disclosure. Recent studies have confirmed that online users become increasingly reluctant to reveal themselves when they initiate relationships through networking sites [71]. Drawing upon IDB and the literature on social networking sites, the current study explores the sources of influence on self-disclosure. By surveying real users of networking sites, we found that user attitude is the key instigator that drives members in self-disclosed engagements. We also found that personality traits (extroversion), networking service attributes (perceived critical mass), and external environments (perceived Internet risk) jointly shaped user attitudes. Finally, our statistical results confirmed that individual privacy values attenuated the relationship between attitude and disclosure behavior. As the existing literature is primarily focused on conceptual modeling [49], [91] and [100], findings that are reported in the current study contribute to the growing body of literature on social networking sites with more nuanced insights pertaining to user privacy disclosure. This research is motivated by the need to understand the discrepancy between users' positive attitudes toward networking sites and their subsequent behavior in terms of self-disclosure. Prior studies suggest that users may be fond of a social networking site, yet feel reluctant to reveal themselves [63] and [71]. In their survey with Facebook members, Tow et al. found that 31% of the respondents indicated that they did not put much personal information on their profiles [91]. To this end, our findings suggest that privacy disclosure behavior is encouraged by members' positive attitude toward the site while discouraged by individual privacy values. Further research and advancement of our study may reveal that there are more factors that account for user self-disclosure behavior; still, we believe that this study makes a small but noticeable step toward a better understanding of why online users choose to disclose themselves in an emerging online platform such as social networking sites.