Why do People Share About Themselves Online? How Self-presentation, Work–home Conflict, and the Work Environment Impact Online Self-disclosure Dimensions

Online self-disclosure (OSD) allows people to build and maintain relationships with others, which has become increasingly important as more work has become remote in recent years. Previous research has investigated OSD as a higher-order factor. We propose that the OSD dimensions—amount, depth, honesty, intention, and valence—may be impacted differently by its antecedents. Specifically, we investigate the relationship between two theorized antecedents of OSD—self-presentation and work-home conflict—and the dimensions of OSD. Additionally, we posit that organizational culture factors may affect these relationships. Specifically, we investigate the impacts of segmentation culture and work location flexibility on the relationships between self-presentation and the OSD dimensions. We collected data from 309 active social networking service users. We found that 1) self-presentation positively impacts each of the OSD dimensions, 2) work-home conflict positively impacts OSD amount, and 3) both segmentation culture and work location flexibility moderate the relationship between self-presentation and OSD amount. Implications for theory and practice and future research directions are discussed.