Mutual friends’ social support and self-disclosure in face-to-face and instant messenger communication

ABSTRACT

In the present study, we investigated long-term effects of self-disclosure on social support in face-to-face and instant messenger (IM) communication between mutual friends. Using a representative sample of 583 German IM users, we explored whether self-disclosure and positive experiences with regard to social support would dynamically interact in the form of a reinforcing spiral across three measurement occasions. If mutual friends self-disclose today, will they receive more social support 6 months later? In turn, will this affect their willingness to self-disclose another 6 months later? We further analyzed spill-over effects from face-to-face to IM communication and vice versa. We found that self-disclosure predicted social support and vice versa in IM communication, but not in face-to-face communication. In light of these results, the impact of IM communication on how individuals maneuver friendships through the interplay between self-disclosure and social support are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Social support
• self-disclosure
• face-to-face conversation
• instant messenger
• longitudinal survey

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Funding

This research was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) Grant 16KIS0094 awarded to Sabine Trepte

Data availability statement

The data described in this article are openly available in the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/wvbpf

Open Scholarship

This article has earned the Center for Open science badges for Open Materials through Open Practices Disclosure. The materials are openly accessible at https://osf.io/wvbpf

Notes

1. As this study is part of a larger project investigating the development of privacy and self-disclosure behavior in the German population, the questionnaire included several other variables. Furthermore, the panelists participated in two additional waves after this study was completed. All materials of this study can be downloaded here: https://osf.io/wvbpf.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) Grant 16KIS0094 awarded to Sabine Trepte