The Study On Users’ Emotional Disclosure In Social Media

The rapid growth of the Internet industry has been fueled by the development of information technology.In line with the trend of information technology development,social media has emerged to provide people with an interactive platform for online communication beyond the limits of time and space.Social media users share their lives,experiences and express their thoughts and feelings with others through self-disclosure.However,emotional disclosure,a common and important specific form of self-disclosure,has not received widespread attention.Not only does the emotional disclosure of social media users have important personal and interpersonal benefits,it also plays an important functional significance in the development of social media.Emotional disclosure has always been considered private and a deeper level of self-disclosure,yet most of the content posted by users in social media is accompanied by emotional overtones.In a social media setting with a wide range of social networks and a wealth of information,what are the variables and mechanisms that affect users’ intention to disclose their emotions? Meanwhile,social media provides features such as likes and comments allowing users to give online feedback to provide social support.Compared to neutral self-disclosure,does emotional disclosure affect users’ online feedback? These are critical questions that need to be addressed and deserve to be explored in depth in terms of theory and empirical evidence.To address the above issues,this study adopts the theory of social sharing of emotions and constructs a behavioral mechanism model of social media users’ emotional disclosure and online feedback under the dual perspective of social media users as emotional disclosers and emotional disclosure receivers.The literature analysis method,questionnaire survey method,sentiment analysis method and statistical analysis method are combined to empirically analyze the influence mechanism of social media environment on users’ emotional disclosure when social media users are emotional disclosers and the influence of emotional disclosure on social media users’ online feedback when they are emotional disclosure receivers.Study 1,based on the perspective of social media users as emotional disclosers of emotional social sharing,the influence of social media environment on users’ emotional disclosure is explored.The study developed a research model and proposed hypotheses using the S-O-R theory to examine how the social media environment affects users’ emotional disclosure.A questionnaire was used to obtain 489 valid sample data from the We Chat Moment users.The validity of the measurement model and the validity of the structural model were tested by building a partial least squares-structural equation model to achieve hypothesis testing.The results of the study suggest that there is a complex mechanism of influence of social media environment on users’ intention to disclose their emotions.Main findings:(1)Under the stimulation of social media interpersonal environment,users’ perceived tie strength will promote users’ intention to disclose positive emotions and negative emotions by enhancing users’ need for emotional expression;users’ perceived tie strength will promote users’ intention to disclose positive emotions and reduce users’ intention to disclose negative emotions by enhancing users’ need for image management.The user’s perceived network size will enhance the user’s image management needs and thus promote the user’s intention to disclose positive emotions and reduce the user’s intention to disclose negative emotions.(2)Under the stimulation of social media information environment,the self-referential level of users and information will promote users’ intention to disclose positive emotions and negative emotions by enhancing users’ need for emotional expression;the self-referential level of users and information will promote users’ intention to disclose positive emotions and reduce users’ intention to disclose negative emotions by enhancing users’ need for image management.Study 2,based on the perspective of social media users as recipients of emotional disclosure for social sharing of emotions,the impact of social media emotional disclosure on online feedback is explored.Firstly,the research model was constructed based on previous studies.Secondly,108,689 Sina Weibo ordinary individual users’ self-disclosure text information with likes and comments data were obtained by python coding as research samples.Then,the sentiment analysis methods based on sentiment dictionary and machine learning were combined to judge the sentiment tendency of the sample text information.Finally,the influence of emotional disclosure on users’ online feedback was explored using single factor analysis.The results of the study indicate that emotional disclosure in social media has a significant impact on online feedback.Main findings:(1)Social media users were more likely to like and comment on emotional self-disclosure than neutral self-disclosure;they were also more likely to do so for positive emotional disclosure than neutral self-disclosure.The neutrality and negativity of self-disclosure has no bearing on the likes and comments of social media users.(2)Social media users were more likely to like and comment on positive emotional disclosure than on negative emotional disclosure.This study expands the emerging research stream of social media emotional disclosure.Its findings enrich the social understanding of social media users’ emotional disclosure behavior and have some practical implications for the development of social media.Finally,this paper reflects on the shortcomings in the research and provides research perspectives for future research.