After experiencing negative life events or emotions, individuals often feel they need to disclose their experiences and feelings to others. Although people may not routinely use social networking sites (SNSs) to disclose distressing personal information due to concerns pertaining to self-presentation and privacy, recent research has shown that people sometimes use SNS to discuss negative experiences and they can be a critical coping resource. As SNSs offer opportunities for those seeking social support and a place to vent negative emotions, which helps people in distress, this project will provide an important understanding about how, when, and why people disclose distressing information on SNS.
Pengfei Zhao is working on a project, which aims to investigate the association between SNS affordances, the imagined audience, and distress disclosure on SNSs.