Abstract
Self disclosure decision making on social networking sites (SNSs) can be considered an intertemporal choice between gaining benefits at the present and experiencing privacy harm in the future. Prior research shows that people tend to overemphasize the immediate benefits while discounting the delayed risks, but it remains unclear how and why different SNS users may subjectively discount the long term risks against the short-term benefits. This paper considers heterogeneity in users’ self disclosure decisions by focusing on the effects of temporal focus (i.e., the degree to which people think about the past, present, and future) on users’ self disclosure willingness. Using online experiments, this study tests the effectiveness of different interventions that manipulate people’s temporal focus in influencing SNS self disclosure willingness. The findings of this study provide practical implications for the design of SNS platforms and development of data policies.
Recommended Citation
Jiang, Zhuoran; Jarvenpaa, Sirkka; and L. Moravec, Patricia, "Understanding the Influence of Temporal Focus on Users’ Self-Disclosure on Social Networking Sites" (2022). SIGHCI 2022 Proceedings. 21.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/sighci2022/21