An Analysis of College Students' Self-Disclosure Behaviors on the Internet

Four hundred and ninety-two undergraduate students at a large Midwestern university completed a 35 item questionnaire designed to assess self-disclosure behaviors on the Internet. Findings revealed that males and females have different perceptions about their self-disclosure behaviors on the Internet. In addition, findings showed that college students have specific self-disclosure behaviors when communicating on the Internet. ********** Wheeless and Grontz (1976) conceptualized self-disclosure as "any message about the self that a person communicates to another" (p. 338). In other words, self-disclosure is a way of willingly making others aware of information about yourself. Many self-disclosure messages include personal facts about ourselves that other individuals would not be able to uncover on their own. Derlega and Berg (1987) noted that self-disclosure is related to getting closer to others. Wheeless and Grontz (1976) designed a self-disclosure measure looking at: truthfulness, conscious intent, valence of the disclosure, the extent, and the quantity of self disclosure. Unlike other measures, the instrument is unconfined to the subject-matter. In addition, the measure can be applied to various situations and different types of relationships. Cozik (1997) noted that the Internet as a communication medium has increased more than the use of telephone and the facsimiles. Parrot, Lemieux, Harris, & Foreman (1997) found that mediated self-disclosures are similar to face-to-face disclosures. However, studies concerning self-disclosure and the Internet have been conspiciously absent from the literature. The purpose of this study is to investigate dimensions of self-disclosure via the Internet. Sample and Methods Participants in the present study were 492 students, enrolled in a basic communication course, from a large Midwestern university. Of the 492 subjects, 215 (43.7 %) were male, 266 (54.1%) were female, and 11 (2.2 %) failed to accurately indicate their gender; 71 (9%) were ages eighteen or below, 352 (71.5%) were between 19 to 22, 31 (6.3%) were 23-26, 12 (2.4%) were 27-32, 14 (2.8%) were 33-40, 11 (2.2%) were 41-50, 1(.2%) was over 50. Eighteen (3.6%) never use the internet, 86 (17.4%) rarely use the internet, 120 (24.3%) use the internet sometimes, 143 (29.0%) use the internet often, and 122 (24.7%) use the internet very often, and 4 (.8%) inaccurately indicated how often they use the internet. The scale was given in a mass testing format. All participants received credit for their participation. After consenting to take part in the study, participants completed an adapted version of Wheeless's (1978) Revised Self-Disclosure Scale. Participants indicated on a seven-point scale in a Likert format the degree to which they agreed or disagreed (7 = strongly agree, 6 = agree, 5 = moderately agree, 4 = are undecided, 3 = moderately disagree, 2 = disagree, or 1 = strongly disagree). The adaptation to the scale was the addition of the words "on the internet" to each item. For instance, one of the items was stated, "I do not often talk about myself on the internet. " The original scale consisted of thirty-one items. An additional four questions were created and asked participants demographic questions as well as questions relating to Internet usage. Findings & Discussion Analysis of the data revealed several significant findings: 1. Intent to Disclose: Four statements were used to access whether the respondents were aware of what they were self-disclosing. Females reported that they were more likely than males to be aware of their self-disclosure behaviors. The mean value between females and males on this category were 5.34 vs. 5.00 respectively (p