Knowledge Bank

The extent to which individuals disclose personal information about themselves online continues to rise. Along with this increase, the number of individuals disclosing potentially damaging information is also increasing. The purpose of the current study was to investigate why people use Facebook in order to disclose personal information about themselves that may lead to negative consequences. College students from The Ohio State University at Newark were instructed to watch a video that would engage their self-control resources. For some, the task depleted their regulatory resources. After watching this video, the participants were asked to write about a day in their life when they felt very upset. Participants were informed of whom the information would be sent to: close Facebook friends, Facebook acquaintances, random Facebook users, or no one. It was hypothesized that the self-disclosure of potentially damaging information on Facebook may be due to a failure in self-regulation and the potential audience of the self-disclosure. Results revealed that the composition of the audience, but not self-control, affected the amount of participants’ self-disclosure. Moreover, the predicted self-control by audience interaction did not increase participant self-disclosure. The results of the current study suggest that self-disclosure online may be motivated by self-presentation rather than caused by a failure in self-regulation.