Effects of Self-Presentation Strategy and Tie Strength on Facebook Users’ Happiness and Subjective Vitality

Abstract

The current study examines how strategic versus true self-presentation strategies affect Facebook (FB) users’ subjective well-being (SWB) depending on their tie strength with existing FB friends. Results of a two-experiment study of FB users aged 18 to 67 demonstrate that users report greater happiness (Experiment 1) and higher degrees of subjective vitality (Experiment 2) when adopting a strategic self-presentation style to post content on FB, rather than a true self-presentation style, while imagining weak tie friends as the target audience. When targeting weak tie friends, strategic self-presentation helps FB users fulfill relationship maintenance goals, which in turn enhances SWB. When imagining posts to strong tie friends, both strategic and true self-presentation strategies had similar effects on FB users’ SWB.