Virtual Identity: The Network Effect of Self-Disclosure
In the digital age, communication and privacy processes have changed. Friendship maintenance in SNS does not require a lot of emotional and time expenses, while self-presentation and self-disclosure have become a modern trend. The article discusses the relationship between the number of network friends and self-disclosure in the social network site (SNS) profile. The content analysis of 1707 VKontakte user's personal pages was conducted, which showed that the number of friends affects the type and amount of published information. For example, users with a large number of online friends are generally more likely to disclose personal data in their profile. This is especially true for the profile fields such as: «Activities», «Interests», «Status», «Phone Number», «Links to accounts in other SNS». The authors suggest that these results can be explained by the user's advertising motives. In particular, contact information disclosure makes it possible to quickly communicate not only with friends, but also with customers. At the same time, «Activities» and «Status» disclosure helps to promote goods and services. This work contributes to the understanding of self- realization factors in the SNS profile and offers one of the ways to explain the «privacy paradox». Future research should also look at other factors that may affect the self-disclosure in the SNS profile.
Information for citation: Sapon, I. V. and Ledenev, D. E. (2020), “Virtual Identity: The Network Effect of Self-Disclosure”, Research Result. Sociology and management, 6 (2), 36-50, DOI: 10.18413/2408-9338-2020-6-2-0-3
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The reported study was funded by RFBR and Novosibirsk region according to the research project № 19-411-543002 «Research of self-disclosure in the profile of social network site «VKontakte»