The Influence of Anonymity and Social Ties on Personal Experience Sharing: A Comprehensive Mixed-Methods Study

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Abstract

Personal experiences are widely shared and varied among types of social media. This study aims to understand how social ties (acquaintance & stranger) and anonymity (real-name & anonymous) of social platforms affect users' willingness to share and post content in dimensions of details, privacy, valence, and arousal. In a scenario-based experimental design, we analyzed 525 posts written by 27 participants under different relationship and anonymity conditions using a comprehensive mixed-methods approach. Quantitative data suggests that relationship and anonymity interact to influence users' self-disclosure: disclosing to acquaintances with real names or to strangers anonymously is more willing. The qualitative evaluation shows that acquaintance platforms have more positive posts with details, and posts on anonymous platforms include more information but with less control of negative valence and arousal. In addition, positive self-experiences shared on social media are more specific and intensive but increase privacy risks. These findings can guide the design of social media to boost ready and safe self-experience-sharing behavior.

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