An Empirical Study Investigating the Effectiveness of Decision Aids in Supporting the Sensemaking Process on Anonymous Social Media

Abstract

Recent times have seen an increase in the usage of anonymous social media. This freedom of anonymity has led people to write posts neglecting the potential consequences of their actions. Moreover, such information could be unreliable. This study investigated the level of trust and confidence level when participants viewed posts written on an anonymous social media. Using a between-subjects experimental design, 189 participants completed the study. The independent variables were, attitude of the yaks: supporting and non-supporting yaks, and decision aid: no sign aid, positive aid for supporting/negative aid for non-supporting yaks and positive aid for non-supporting/negative aid for supporting yaks. We found that positive decision aid for supporting yaks improved the likelihood rating, trust, and confidence level when compared to negative decision aid. It was easier for the participants to accept positivity than negativity.