Chirp: The Impact of Private Online Self-Disclosure on Perceived Social Support

Abstract

As social media continues to grow as a space for emotional self-disclosure, it is important to understand whether self-disclosure acts as a causal factor impacting positive outcomes for users. Thus we developed Chirp, an anonymous social media sandbox space designed to explore the underlying effects of disclosure within online spaces. Users in Chirp are prompted to self-disclose moods and emotions using emojis. Through a between-subjects study among a cohort of first-year undergraduate student users on Chirp, we evaluate the effect of self-disclosure within semi-private online spaces on social support. While Chirp use does not show a significant increase in measured feelings of social support, user responses suggest that self-disclosure in Chirp may provide more social support than typical social media use or simple mood tracking over a two-week period. Our findings indicate that even in pseudo-anonymous, low-bandwidth communication platforms, self-disclosure may cause increased feelings of social support. This work highlights the impact of communication in semi-private online spaces on perceived social support.