JournalofAppliedComputingandInformationTechnology
ISSN2230-4398,Volume17,Issue1,2013
IncorporatingtheNACCQpublications:
BulletinofAppliedComputingandInformationTechnology,ISSN1176-4120
JournalofAppliedComputingandInformationTechnology,ISSN1174-0175
RefereedArticleA6:
Self-disclosureonFacebook:Howmuchdowereallyreveal?
StephanieDay
EITHawke'sBay,NewZealand
[email protected]
Day,S.(2013).Self-disclosureonFacebook:Howmuchdowereallyreveal?.Journalof
AppliedComputingandInformationTechnology,17(1).RetrievedJune2,2015from
http://www.citrenz.ac.nz/jacit/JACIT1701/2013Day_Facebook.html
Abstract
ThispaperinvestigatestheuseofthesocialnetworkingsiteFacebooktoself-discloseand
analyses the responses of a small group of Facebook users surveyed about their own
willingness to self-disclose. An online survey was used to ask Facebook users about their
levelofFacebookuse,whattypesofpersonalinformationtheyarewillingtorevealandthe
frequency of these personal revelations. The survey also asked the participants to take a
look at their publicly viewable profile and the types of information revealed there. Results
indicated that overall, most people tended to be cautious about the types of information
they revealed, posted mainly positive statements about themselves and were aware of
personalprivacyissues.
Keywords
Facebook,self-disclosure,privacy,socialmedia,computer-mediatedcommunication
1.Introduction
Recentadvancesincomputer-mediatedcommunicationtechnologymeanthatinterpersonal
communication has moved beyond the immediacy of face-to-face interactions. These
technological advances have allowed rapid growth in online social networking sites that
have significantly changed the way in which we can meet new people, interact, form and
maintainrelationships.
Facebook has over 1 billion users active each month (Facebook, 2013) and is one of the
fastestgrowingsocialnetworksitesaimedatconnectingfamilyandfriends.Notonlydoes
Facebook allow interactions between people known to each other in 'real life', but also
allows interactions with those who have become 'friends' online. The ability to Facebook
'friend'thosepersonallyknownaswellasthosemetonlinemeansthatpersonalinformation
shared on Facebook is available to a diverse audience. The process of revealing personal
information is a way for people to establish trust and build relationships (Trenholm &
Jensen, 2011), but it may also pose a risk when close family and online acquaintances
mergeintoacommonstreamofconversationwheretheabilitytofilterself-disclosuresby
audienceisremoved.
Theresearchquestionthatthispaperaddressesis"Whattypesofpersonalinformationdo
Facebookusersfeelcomfortableself-disclosingontheirFacebookwallandprofilepage,and
howoftendothesedisclosuresoccur?"
ThispaperanalysestheresponsesofasmallgroupofFacebookuserssurveyedabouttheir
own willingness to self-disclose. The paper discusses the types of personal information
theseusersdeemedappropriatetosharegiventhepotentiallydiverseaudienceandlevels
ofpriorintimacy,andhowoftensuchinformationwasshared.
2.LiteratureReview
2.1.CommunicationandSocialNetworking
The ability to use the Internet and social networking websites has provided additional
communicationoptions.Traditionalcommunicationoccurredeitherinperson,bytelephone
or by mail. Now, messages can be sent electronically, via email or social networking
websites and using online video conferencing tools. The use of electronic communication
tools and social networking sites in particular, has added a new dimension to the
relationship development process (Barnes, 2006). Not only is social networking used to
maintain existing relationships, it is also being used to make new friends (Lenhert &
Madden,2007).
The largest social networking site is Facebook. Founded in 2004, Facebook is a structured
social media website that allows users to connect with or "friend" other users, create a
community,andexchangemessageseitherindividuallyandprivately,oropenlybyposting
onawall.Wallmessagescanhavedifferentlevelsofvisibilityattachedtothemdepending
on the users security settings, however a study by Lipford, Besmer and Watson (2008)
found Facebook users generally underused these settings, trusted the permissive default
settingsandleftallwallmessagesvisibletoall"friends".Thisstudyalsorevealedthatwhile
Facebook users were aware of the mix in their audience, they struggled with privacy and
oftenrevealedpersonalinformationnottailoredtoadiverseaudience.
2.2SelfDisclosure
Self-disclosure is the process of revealing information about yourself during the
development of relationships. Traditionally this has been face-to-face during verbal
exchange and includes information that helps people understand those things about you
that they would be unlikely to discover elsewhere (Trenholm & Jensen, 2013). Selfdisclosureisusuallyagradualprocessthatstartswithrevealingenoughbasicinformation
to reduce anxiety, create a positive impression and to decide whether an ongoing
relationshipisworthpursuing.
Self-disclosuresusingtextbasedelectroniccommunicationmethodsfollowasimilarpattern
although a previous study (Tidwell & Walther, 2002) revealed users were prevented from
gainingfullimpressionsofthediscloserduetothelackofnon-verbalcues.Thisstudyalso
revealedthatinsomeinstancesthislackoffullimpressionledtosomeshelteringoffacts
and self-disclosures did not further develop relationships to any great depth or intimacy.
Thistypeofcommunicationalsoallowsuserstopresentauniqueself-viewbyengagingin
strategicself-disclosure(Utz,Taniz&Vermeulen,2012),revealingonlypositiveinformation
aboutthemselvesmotivatedbytheneedtobelong(Baumeister&Leary,1995).
2.3Narcissism,ExhibitionismandVoyeurismonFacebook
Facebookencouragesitsuserstoposttextualmessagesontheirwallsandsharethoughts
and information about their lives by answering the question "what's on your mind?" This
feature of Facebook provides easy opportunity for people with narcissistic tendencies to
engage in "exhibitionism and attention seeking behaviours that partly define this
personalitytrait"(Bergman,Fearrington,Davenport&Bergman,2010,p.707).Narcissism
occurs when an individual has an inflated self-concept and pursues excessive admiration,
power,statusorcontrolinsomeform.Facebook,withitseaseofuseandabilitytoreacha
wideaudience,providesaplatformfornarcissiststoreceiveinstantgloryandattention.A
study by Buffardi and Campbell (2008), found that narcissism related to higher levels of
onlinesocialactivityandself-promotion,withFacebookprovidingopportunityfornarcissists
to connect (albeit superficially) to many 'friends', share self-promoting photographs and
generallyfulfilltheirdesireforattention.
Thecounterparttotheself-promotingexhibitionistbehaviourofthenarcissistisvoyeurism.
Voyeur literally means 'observer' and has traditionally been considered a type of deviant
behaviourwherepeoplegetathrillfromwatchingothers.Inthesocialnetworkingworld,a
person who observes rather than participates is generally known as a lurker. Facebook
provides opportunity for users to lurk and view the lives of others through information
sharedonwallposts.Althoughthelurkerrarelysharesinformationinreturn,thisbehaviour
isnotseenasdeviant,butisdeemedharmlessandanormalpartofaddingmeaningand
valuetothesocialcommunity(Munar,2010).
2.4FacebookPrivacy
Although lurking is seen as a harmless activity, knowing that this behaviour exists is
important when considering personal privacy. Facebook has privacy settings that are
permissive by default. This means that without making any alterations to the privacy
settings,allstatusupdates,photosandpostsareavailabletoeveryone.Thesesettingscan
be customized, however, many people remain unaware that these default settings allow
personalinformationtobecomepublic(Comer,McKelvey&Curran,2012).Stutzman,Gross
and Acquisti (2012), reporting on a 5 year longitudinal study, found that Facebook users
became more aware of privacy settings over time and this resulted in the level of public
disclosures decreasing. However during a time when Facebook had again changed the
defaultprivacypolicyandinterfacesettings,thelevelofpublicdisclosuresincreased.Itwas
concluded that these continual changes made it more difficult for users to remain up-todatewhenmanagingtheirownprivacysettings.
3.Method
3.1Participants
OnehundredandsixtynineFacebook'friends'wereinvitedtotakepartinasurvey(shown
in Appendix 1) to gauge the level and types of disclosures this group felt comfortable
revealing on their Facebook walls. Some 'friends' shared the invitation with their 'friends',
andintotal,twenty-seven'friends'and'friendsoffriends'completedthesurvey.
3.2Instrumentation
A survey was designed and implemented online using an online survey website,
freeonlinesurveys.com. The survey consisted of four multi-choice questions, seventeen
Likert item statements and three free answer questions. The Likert items asked the
participant to rate statements of personal self-disclosure using five levels: Never, a few
times, sometimes, almost always and always. The multi-choice questions asked the
participantstoindicatetheirgender,levelofFacebookuse,howpublictheirFacebookwall
isandwhatinformationispubliclyavailablethroughtheirprofile.
3.3Procedure
The link to the survey was provided on the author's Facebook wall and volunteers were
invitedtoparticipate.Clickingtheprovidedlinkopenedtheonlinesurvey(seeAppendix1).
The survey explained the meaning of self-disclosure, how the responses would be used,
howlongthesurveywasexpectedtotakeandassuredtheanonymityandconfidentialityof
theresponses.Nopersonalidentifyinginformationwascollected.Thesurveywasopenfor
sevendays.
4.Results
A total of twenty-seven (n=27) 'friends' and 'friends of friends' completed the survey.
Survey analytics revealed the responses came from USA (3), Canada (1), India (1),
Portugal(1),Australia(2)andNewZealand(19).Sevenparticipantsweremaleandtwenty
female.
A frequency distribution (shown in Figure 1) indicated two-thirds (66.7%) of participants
posted on their Facebook wall about once a week or more frequently. The other 33.3%
indicatedtheyonlyoccasionallyorrarelymadepostings.
Figure1.AverageFacebookwallpostingsbyparticipants
OneparticipanthadaFacebookwallthatwaspubliclyviewable,21hadtheirwallviewable
byfriendsandfivehadanunspecifiedcustomizedsetting.Noonehadaprivatewall.
Oneparticipantindicatedtheyalwaystalkaboutthemselves.Twenty-twoindicatedthetalk
about themselves a few times or almost always. Four indicated they never talk about
themselves. 81.5% of participants indicated their self-disclosures are almost always or
alwayshonest.
Personal relationship problems (Figure 2) are never shared by 26 (96.3%) of the
participants and personal health problems (Figure 3) are never shared by 17 (63.0%) of
the participants. Those remaining indicating they share these types of problems either a
fewtimesorsometimes.
Figure2.Sharingofrelationshipproblems
Figure3.Sharingofpersonalhealthproblems
Work related problems are not readily shared, with 70.4% indicating they never share
these. Religious beliefs and family problems are shared the least out of the options
available. Three participants indicated they are always likely to share personal likes,
whereas more than half of those surveyed indicated personal dislikes are shared only
sometimes (59.3%). Photographs of self and family are shared sometimes by most
participants(seeFigure4),asarefamilymilestonessuchasbirthdays.
Figure4.Sharingofpersonalandfamilyphotos
Personalachievementsaremorelikelytobesharedthanpersonalfailings(Figure5).
Figure5.Sharingofpersonalfailingsandachievements
Asked if there was anything they would share that was not listed in question 4, the
participantsindicatedtheyarewillingtoshare:
Progressonmajorprojects
Theirpersonalbrandofhumour
Hobbiesandthingsofprofessionalinterest.
In response to a question asking participants to list anything they would never share on
Facebook,theanswersincluded:
Intimatelifewithspouse
Criticismofothers
Familymentalhealthissues
Somepicturesofchildren
Ex-relationshiphistory
Feelingsaboutworkandfriends
Personalissuesincludingdisagreements,arguments
Nakedpictures.
Participants revealed a range of information about themselves on their publicly viewable
profile (Figure 6). Three participants do not reveal their real name. Most indicate they
revealtheirhometown.Lessthanhalftheparticipantsrevealtheirfulldateofbirth,where
they work, where they attended university, their family members, email addresses and
phonenumbers.Twoparticipantsdidnotknowwhattheyrevealedintheirpublicprofile.
Figure6.Sharingofpersonalinformationonapublicprofile
One participant indicated they have closed groups, one for family and one for girlfriends
andinformationpertinenttothosegroupsareonlyavailablethere.Oneindicatedthat:"It's
atwoedgedsword.Iwanttoshareinfobecauseit'saneasywaytoletfriendsknowwhat's
going on. But, if you don't keep up with FB privacy changes, you have more shared than
youexpectedorwanted."
5.Discussion
TheprimarypurposeofthisstudywastogaugethelevelandtypesofinformationFacebook
users felt comfortable self-disclosing on their Facebook walls. Previous research has
revealed a range of results regarding self-disclosure using social media and other
computer-mediatedcommunicationchannelsrangingfromreducedself-disclosureresulting
inlessintimaterelationships(Tidwell&Walther,2002)throughtoover-disclosureresulting
in concerns about perceived safety and privacy (Joinson, Reips, Buchanan & Schofield,
2010;Lipfordetal.,2008).
5.1YourLifeisBetterThanMine
ThisstudyhasrevealedthattheFacebookuserssurveyedaregenerallycautiouswiththeir
disclosures, very rarely moving beyond disclosing non-risky information suitable for all
audiences. These Facebook users did not generally disclose information aimed at further
developing intimate relationships, but rather used the disclosures to "broadcast"
achievement and share information of a non-intimate nature, with more personal
information relating to relationship, health, family and work-related problems generally
remainingunshared.However,positivegeneraldisclosuresrelatingtosuccesses,milestones
andachievementsaremorelikelytobesharedoverall.Thisconfirmspreviousstudiesthat
showusersrevealpositiveaspectsofpersonalinformationtoenhancetheirprofile,fulfilla
need to belong (Baumeister & McKenna, 2004) and to project a socially desirable self
(Zhao,Grasmuck,&Martin,2008).Thistendencytopositivelyself-disclosurealsoleadsto
a skewed or unbalanced view by the audience of how well other people are doing in their
lives, as the discloser is perceived, by the nature of their posts, to have a happier and
betterlifethantheiraudience(Chou&Edge2012;Qui,Lin,Leung&Tov,2012).
The one Facebook 'friend' who has a publicly available wall also indicated they rarely talk
aboutthemselves,neversharephotosandrarelymakeotherdisclosures.Therearemany
reasons why someone may have a publicly viewable profile, from being a "known
personality"tohavingnarcissisticorexhibitionisttendenciestosimplybeingunawareofthe
dangersofbeingpubliclyviewablewhendisclosingpersonalinformation.Inthiscase,due
tothelackofpersonaldisclosuresofanykind,itcouldbeconcludedthatthispersonmay
bemaintainingapresenceonlyorpossiblyengaginginlurkingorsocialvoyeurism;takinga
lookatthelivesofotherswithdeliberatenon-reciprocation,andisperhapsnotinterested
intherelationalandsocialsharingaspectofFacebook.
5.2PublicandPrivate
One user made use of a Facebook feature called groups and created a private group for
family and girlfriends, indicating disclosures of a more personal nature occurred there.
Groupsallowsharingwithselectiveaudiences.Thegroupscanbeopenandpublic,closed
withpostsonlyvisibletomembersbutthegroupisvisibleandmembersprofilesavailable,
orsecretwherethegroupisonlyavailabletomembers.Usinggroupsisawayofleveraging
existingfeaturestomanageprivacyandsharingconcerns.
Five friends indicated they have a customized wall setting. This means they are aware of
Facebookprivacysettingsandareabletocustomizeandtailorpoststospecificaudiences.
Furtherresearchwouldneedtobeundertakenwiththeseuserstoascertainwhetherornot
usingcustomizedsettingsalteredthetypesorfrequencyofpersonalinformationdisclosed.
The survey participants were also well aware of the information provided on their publicly
viewableprofilesanddidnotrevealmoreintimatepersonalinformation.Threeparticipants
wentasfarasnotrevealingtheirrealnames,therebymakingthemselvesunsearchableand
indicating an awareness of personal privacy issues in the online environment. Third party
applicationsalsohaveaccesstouserinformationbutthiswasnotinvestigatedinthisstudy.
6.Conclusion
The purpose of this research was to investigate the types of information a small group of
Facebook users felt comfortable disclosing on their Facebook walls and how often these
disclosures occur. The research revealed that this group of Facebook users played it safe
whenrevealingpersonalinformationontheirwallsbydisclosingonlythatinformationthey
deemed appropriate for viewing by a diverse audience. These users also indicated
awareness of personal privacy issues by being selective about the types of information
availableontheirpublicprofiles.
ThisgroupofFacebookusersrarelyorneverdisclosedmorepersonalorintimatetypesof
information such as relationship and work problems or religious beliefs. Instead, the selfdisclosuresweremoreoftenofapositivenatureandincludedsharingpersonallikes,family
milestonesandphotographsofselfandfamily.Thedisclosuresofthisgroupcanbeseenas
a way of maintaining connections within existing relationships rather than a means to
establishnewrelationships.
As one user indicated, the use of the Facebook group feature is a way of selectively selfdisclosing amongst subsets of 'friends'. Further research would be needed to investigate
more fully the use of groups as a way of managing personal information flow while
maintainingappropriatelevelsofself-disclosurewithinsubsetsofFacebook'friends'.
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JournalofAppliedComputingandInformationTechnology(JACIT):ISSN22304398
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