Sharing only parts of me: Selective categorical self-disclosure across internet arenas

Abstract

Research that has considered how individuals share their personal information in online compared to
\noffline disclosures has often demonstrated heightened and accelerated disclosures in online interactions. Recent
\nwork has shown that this acceleration may be more likely to occur for the sharing of superficial self-information
\nin initial general online interactions. This work was extended to explore the reported content of online
\ndisclosures in four different Internet arenas, social networking, instant messaging, general communication and
\nonline shopping. Using a self-disclosure scale amongst a sample of students to measure the revelation of
\ninformation pertaining to individuals’ beliefs, relationships, personal matters, interests and intimate feelings, the
\ncurrent findings showed that self-disclosure could be more categorical and goal-directed than can be accounted
\nfor by existing cue-impoverished and text-based explanations of online self-disclosure. Participants reported selfdisclosing
\nsignificantly less on online shopping sites than in the three communications type arenas. A consistent
\npattern of significant differences in the sharing of superficial (interests, relationships & personal matters) and
\nmore personal or intimate (intimate feelings & beliefs) information in instant messaging, social networking and
\ngeneral communication, along with an absence of significant intra-categorical disclosures is in line with
\nhyperpersonal computer-mediated communication theory in that people selectively choose which information to
\nself-disclose online, a proposal further supported by a significant decrease from relationship to personal matters
\ninformation in instant messaging. These findings imply that categorical disclosures could be mapped onto the
\nsocial cognitive self-memory-system model of autobiographical memory in line with the social penetration
\ntheory of self-disclosure. The findings along with non-significant differences in reported levels of overall selfdisclosure
\nacross the Internet arenas are theoretically and empirically discussed, giving particular emphasis to
\nconsidering future directions for research aiming to elucidate and explain the social cognitive processes
\nassociated with self-disclosure online.