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Abstract | The present paper examines the extent to which self-presentation may be affected by the context in which is it undertaken. Individuals were asked to complete the Twenty Statements Test both privately and publicly, but were given an opportunity to withhold any of their personal information before it was made public. Four contexts were examined: an offline context (face-to-face), an un-contextualized general online context, or two specific online contexts (dating or job-seeking). The results suggested that participants were willing to disclose substantially less personal information online than offline. Moreover, disclosure decreased as the online context became more specific, and those in the job-seeking context disclosed the least amount of information. Surprisingly, individual differences in personality did not predict disclosure behavior. Instead, the results are set in the context of audience visibility and social norms, and implications for self-presentation in digital contexts are discussed.

Associated Project
SID: An Exploration of Super-Identity
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2014.09.018
Citation
Emanuel, L., Neil, G. J., Bevan, C., Fraser, D. S., Stevenage, S. V., Whitty, M. T., & Jamison-Powell, S. (2014). Who am i? representing the self offline and in different online contexts. Computers in Human Behavior, 41, 146 - 152. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2014.09.018
@article{EMANUEL2014146, title = "Who am I? Representing the self offline and in different online contexts", journal = "Computers in Human Behavior", volume = "41", pages = "146 - 152", year = "2014", issn = "0747-5632", doi = "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2014.09.018", author = "Lia Emanuel and Greg J. Neil and Chris Bevan and Danaƫ Stanton Fraser and Sarah V. Stevenage and Monica T. Whitty and Sue Jamison-Powell", keywords = "Self-concept, Self-presentation, Offline and online disclosure, Social network sites" }