Seeking safer spaces: The mitigating impact of young adults’ Facebook and Instagram audience expectations and posting type on fear of negative evaluation

Social media has become ubiquitous and multifaceted. In this complex digital landscape, individuals are confronted with platform options, response expectations, anticipated audiences, and norms for posting on social media. In this study, college student participants (N = 300) were asked about their fear of negative evaluation (FNE), comfort levels when posting on Facebook and Instagram, expected valence of response, anticipated audience, and likelihood to unfriend or block people. Results revealed that comfort levels when posting were associated more with posting norms than emotional disposition (i.e., FNE). Furthermore, individuals anticipated a positive yet superficial response to their posts. They generally imagined the audience of their posts to be close others and casual friends, with a key difference of imagining family as audience on Facebook, rather than Instagram. By imagining close and friendly others as audiences as well as anticipating superficial, positive responses to posts, individuals inhabit two platform spaces that feel safer, even for those who fear negative evaluation.