Education plans, personal challenges and academic difficulties: an empirical study on self-disclosure among post-90s teens in Hong Kong

Abstract

This paper analyses post-90s teenagers in Hong Kong for their willingness to communicate their educational plans, personal challenges and academic difficulties to their parents, their teachers and their peers. Through logistic regression methods, this paper identifies demographic characteristics of those who are willing to share and those who are not, from a dataset of 308 students. Characteristics of those who are reluctant to share with anyone about any problems are also identified. This paper finds out a direct relationship between relationship closeness and the teenager's willingness to self-disclose. We conclude by discussing potential social policies that can possibly promote family and social harmony.

Keywords::

• self-disclosure
• post-90s generation
• logistic regression
• Hong Kong

1. Introduction

In Hong Kong, ‘post-90s’ is a relatively new term that describes teenagers born after the year 1990. Wong (2009) in her best-selling book Hong Kong Children said that post-90s children in Hong Kong have been raised and nurtured in comfortable and sheltered environments. Given the richness of an average Hong Kong household, these children are generally over-protected by their helicopter parents1 and might be spoiled. They are insulated from vagaries of the real world. This may not be healthy for the society as a whole because these post-90s children can be extremely vulnerable after leaving school. Given the unique political and economic atmosphere in Hong Kong after political turnover in 1997, the post-90s generation in Hong Kong has experienced many changes in a relatively short period of time (Yip, Wong, Law, & Fu, 2011). It is crucial for us to understand more about this new generation as Beck (2009) has pointed out that young people in modern societies have changed quite significantly from earlier generations. In fact, according to a telephone survey conducted by the Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups (2010), youth dissatisfaction was on the rise. The percentage of youth dissatisfied with their quality of life has increased from 14% to 25% since 2007. Wong, Wong, and Mok (2006) have found out that Hong Kongers are not as satisfied with life despite a comparatively high national income average. It is worthwhile to mention that one of the most critical factors that affect life satisfaction is age. It is further pointed out that the Hong Kong education system is highly competitively and young people suffer under heavy pressure to achieve academically (Liu, 2009).

After Wong published this book, post-90s children instantly became the subjects of heated discussion forums, newspaper columns and Internet debates in Hong Kong in 2009. Most Hong Kong citizens echo her observations and applaud her efforts in describing the major characteristics of these children. In summary, she argues that post-90s children have at least some of the following characteristics:

• These children look mature, but are underdeveloped in intellect.

• These children love to play but nothing interests them.

• These children usually have no comments even on the hottest topics.

• These children are good at observing but are not good at reading.

• These children are good listeners, but they do not necessarily understand what they hear.

• These children love to be distinguished, but they lack confidence in front of their peers.

• These children have low levels of aspirations on almost everything; their usual response is ‘I don't know’.

• These children lack a sense of responsibility and do not have the ability to take care of themselves. They lack curiosity and ambition.

• These children focus on results but do not enjoy the process that leads to that outcome.

• These children are ignorant, and are protected by an ideal environment provided by their parents.

It is no secret that the ‘post-90s’ phenomenon has already resulted in some social challenges in Hong Kong. The ‘teen models’ and ‘intimacy exchange’ phenomenon are two major social problems for this post-90s generation in Hong Kong. In fact, it is generally accepted that the average post-90s person is quite opposite to the average post-80s person. Post-80s refers to those born between 1980 and 1989. They are characterised by their outspoken nature and extreme actions. They are willing to fight against social injustice and have created other social challenges in Hong Kong. This creates a dramatic contrast with those who were born a decade later. Yip et al. (2011) have conducted an excellent descriptive study on the characteristics of the post-80s generation in Hong Kong using four studies: a demographic and socio-economic profile study, telephone and online surveys, focus group studies, and semi-structured interviews. They conclude their study by urging the government to provide these young generations recreational space in order to promote a healthy work–life balance. As mentioned above, the post-90s children lack a sense of responsibility and they do not necessarily have the ability to take care of themselves or handle even simple tasks. A lot of people feel puzzled when a hardworking, diligent post-90s 20-year-old commits suicide because he/she did not have the financial means to enter university (see Apple Daily, 2010). These students are afraid to talk to their parents and even other friends. They are not trained to resolve issues even though many options are actually available. They can borrow student loans, apply for scholarships or even borrow from parents. But this particular student was simply overwhelmed and chose to kill himself. In another story, a diligent, academically established 15-year-old killed his mother and sister for no apparent reason (see ON.CC, 2010). These are alarming instances. A lot of social workers and educators in Hong Kong have argued that the post-90s generation in Hong Kong can be a ticking bomb that can explode any time.

The post-90s generation is more mysterious than the post-80s generation in Hong Kong since it is not as outspoken and no one may know what they are thinking about. This generation may take extreme actions without warning. Therefore, it is crucial for scholars to spend more time to investigate this cohort of students. It is also noted that this post-90s phenomenon has spread to nearby countries such as China and Taiwan, and it may spread to other regions of the world.

Apart from medical and physical disorders, psychological difficulties are usually the reason for these unexpected, irrational behaviours. These individuals may feel that enough love is not being provided by their families, their schools and their peers even though that may not be true. They may have difficulties expressing themselves or relaxing. They may be suppressing their anger against perceived injustice and treatment they receive for an extended period of time.

It is worth mentioning that one major reason for these extreme behaviours is the lack of communication or self-disclosure by the individual to other people. In fact, studies have suggested that antisocial behaviours are associated with poor relationships with others (for example, Dekovic, Wissink, & Meijer, 2004). A person who is willing to share and talk is likely to receive more encouragement and help than those who are not willing to share. In Hong Kong, just like other countries, a student who does not want to share is more likely to be a high-risk individual and become ‘socially withdrawn’. On the other hand, if a child is more willing to share, one can expect him/her to have a happier and healthier childhood. This improves the quality of life of this individual.

It may not be wise to apply rational-choice game-theory-based models to analyse such extreme behaviours; this paper employs logistic regression analysis to investigate possible determinants of individual actions of sharing. This paper is an exploratory study of what types of students share their feelings with whom when faced with different types of difficulties (academic, personal or educational). The purpose of this study is to identify high-risk individuals before they become socially withdrawn or participate in irrational extreme behaviours. Once we can identify this high-risk group, adequate assistance can be provided efficiently before it is too late.

In this study, we classify the problems these post-90s students face into three main categories: personal challenges, educational plans and academic difficulties. Under each category, every student is asked whether he/she is willing to share the problems and feelings with parents, teachers and peers.

Educational planning is an important indicator of the level of independence of the children. If a child is willing to discuss educational planning with someone, it is a signal that the child wants to take a more engaging approach for building his/her own career. Therefore, the authors argue that this child is likely to be more independent and more responsible than those who are not willing to share. Typically, it will be normal to expect children to talk to both their parents and teachers for resolving this type of problems. They need to talk to their parents for monetary reasons whereas their teachers are expected to give them the most valuable advice. Students may talk to their peers too if they want to study together. However, it may be a favourable or unfavourable situation.

Academic difficulties include every problem a child encounters in studies. It is expected that they consult teachers who assign/set up the questions. They may ask their parents too if they believe parents can help them. However, this happens more often when the students are young and becomes less likely when the students get into higher grades. The students are likely to ask their peers whom they trust for academic help too.

Personal challenges include every other difficulty a student encounters, apart from the above two. It may include issues that affect their emotional feelings, physical wellness and/or chosen behaviours. It is expected that the students share these with only those they trust the most, hopefully their parents or teachers.

One important contribution of this paper is to characterise those who do not share any of these three categories of problems with their parents, teachers or peers. In this paper, we argue that these students are high-risk individuals who may evolve to become ‘socially withdrawn’ and have the potential to engage in extreme activities that can be hazardous to the society as a whole. It is reminded that even though this study is carried out in Hong Kong, information revealed can also be used to compare with other countries.

In summary, we want to identify the underlying demographic factors that may contribute to these students' willingness to share. Some of these demographic factors may increase or decrease the likelihood of a student: to share some types of issues, but not others; and to share a particular issue with a special group of individuals, but not others.

The organisation of the remaining paper is as follows. Section 2 talks about existing literature on self-disclosures; Section 3 discusses the methodology employed in this paper and briefly introduces the dataset; Section 4 presents variable descriptions and empirical results; Section 5 shows the statistical findings and results; Section 6 briefly talks about research limitation and future research directions and Section 7 concludes the paper.

2. Literature on self-disclosure

Discussions on the willingness to self-disclose personal feelings can be found in academic journals in education, psychology, communicational studies, sociology and economics.2 Any attempt to summarise and review this cross-disciplinary topic is difficult and extremely challenging. There are multiple definitions of self-disclosures. Pearce and Sharp (1973) defined self-disclosure as communication behaviours through which a speaker consciously makes himself/herself known to the other person; Wheeless and Grotz (1977) suggested that self-disclosure comprises everything a person tells about himself/herself to others: and Derlega (1984) defined self-disclosure as a way of showing others who we are or what our needs are. Generally, self-disclosure is defined as both the conscious and unconscious act of revealing more about oneself to others. This may include, but is not limited to, thoughts, feelings, aspirations, goals, failures, successes, fears, dreams as well as one's likes, dislikes and favourites. This is still a very broad definition that includes all possible verbal and non-verbal expressions. A person can self-disclose something by a smile, a tattoo, the way of dressing, and so forth. There is no doubt that these should be included under the broad definition of self-disclosure. However, for the purpose of this paper, we want to limit ‘self-disclosure’ to only the verbal types. In other words, if a student does not want to share, this represents unwillingness to self-disclose.

Most early works were in the area of psychology (for example, Jourard, 1964, 1971a, 1971b; Altmand & Haythorn, 1965; Altmand & Taylor, 1973). Most of these indicated a common finding: the more is the willingness to self-disclose, the better. An excellent review of works about self-disclosure can be found in Dindia (2002) and Greene, Derlega, and Mathews (2006). An important finding of works in this area is that the degree of self-disclosure ties closely with personal relations (Harvey & Omarzu, 1997; Prager, 1995), self-worth and identity (Greebe, Derkega, Yep, & Petronio, 2003). Recent studies have gradually switched to analyse issues related to the Internet (for example, Mazer, Murphy, & Simonds, 2007; Qian & Scott, 2007; Rosen, Cheever, Cummings, & Felt, 2008), issues regarding cultural differences (Harris, Dersch, & Mittal, 1999; Roloff & Ifert, 2000; Schug, Yuki, & Maddux, 2010) and other sensitive issues (MacNeiland & Byers, 2009). This current paper, however, wants to empirically study the willingness among post-90s teenagers in Hong Kong to disclose their thoughts and feelings to their parents, teachers and peers. We believe that some students may want to share only with their parents whereas some may only share with their peers. We aim to identify characteristics of these different types of students in order to make some policy suggestions.

Most psychologists believe peers, and not parents or teachers, are usually the first persons that students want to share their secrets with. Teenagers may not be willing to share bad things with their parents because they do not want to disappoint or anger them. Teenagers may not be willing to share with teachers because they may not have enough trust in them. There is a higher tendency for them to share with a friend or someone they are comfortable with, and that is usually the peers. Kram and Isabella (1985) studied 25 relationship pairs and argued that peers have important influences in personal career development. Hartup (2005) argued that at least three factors affect the likelihood that a student is willing to share: having friends, who one's friends are and the quality of the friendship. Jellesma, Rieffe, and Terwogt (2008) studied the relations between peer relationships and somatic complaints among children in Den Bosch, the Netherlands. Sharing with peers can be both a positive and a negative circumstance. On one hand, having some encouragement and advice from peers can reduce the risk to become socially withdrawn. On the other hand, peers may not be qualified to give advice that is helpful to the student. In this paper, we try to identify students who are more willing to share with their peers so that potential mentoring or training programmes can be carried out effectively.

Sharing with teachers is another important channel for legitimate advice. It is likely that the teacher of a teenager is likely to be a great mentor, if the teacher can earn the student's trust. Most literature, however, focus on whether teachers should self-disclose themselves more, instead of discussing what teachers can do in order to motivate students to disclose more (Cayanus & Martin, 2002). Corrigan and Chapman (2008) argued that teachers can motivate students to learn and interact more when they get trust from their students. In an idealistic world, a teacher typically is the person who can provide the most professional and objective advice to the students. It can be argued that parents may have overestimated the ability of their own children whereas the peers may not be mature enough to give useful advice. It is beneficial to dig up the underlying reasons why students are willing to share with their teachers.

Parents inevitably play crucial roles in the development of a child. Vangelisti (1993) argues that communications between family members are influenced by complex histories and emotions. Many findings in the family perspective have been replicated. Martin and Anderson (1995) sampled 159 undergraduate students enrolled in communication classes from a private Midwestern university to explore father–son relationships. They found that young adults are more likely to disclose positive than negative information to their parents, compared with their friends and spouses. Also, females are more likely to share verbally with their parents. The same finding is also documented in other studies such as those by Jourard and Lasakow (1958), Petronio, Martin, and Littlefield (1984), Youniss and Smollar (1985), and Dindia and Allen (1992). Wood and Inman (1993), on the other hand, argued that males might disclose more than previously thought through non-verbal types of communication methods. In a recent paper, Vieno, Nation, Pastore, and Santinello (2009) estimated the relationship between adolescent self-disclosure, parental closeness and adolescent antisocial behaviour, using an Italian dataset. They suggested that mother–child closeness (not father–child closeness) is positively related to early adolescents' self-disclosure. Positive family climate is the key to foster the disclosure of personal information by children. Smetana, Gettman, Metzger, and Campione-Barr (2006) interviewed 276 ethnically diverse ninth-graders and 12th-graders on parental self-disclosure. They also found that adolescents disclose more to their mothers than to their fathers, especially personal issues. Even though the father–child closeness is generally not significant in the above literature, the author suspects that might not be the case when using Chinese datasets, especially in respect of questions such as education planning. Maddox (2010) studied impacts on self-disclosure among children of divorced parents. They argued that children may feel ‘confused’ and ‘unsure’. This may hinder the willingness of the children to voice their feelings.

Several early studies on adolescent self-disclosure were qualitative research based on case analysis and focus groups. Empirical studies concerning self-disclosure were relatively scarce in the beginning. The earliest study, the authors believe, was by psychologist Sidney Jourard (1964), who found out that openness in at least one significant relationship was a prerequisite for a healthy personality. Kenny and La Voie (1984) quantified how much disclosure in social interaction is unique to partners in a close relationship. A few others (for example, Stokes, Childs, & Fuehrer, 1981; Derlega, Winstead, Wong, & Hunter, 1985) have quantitatively studied the impact of gender on self-disclosure. In the past decade, more and more papers have focused on empirical studies to identify regression correlations between self-disclosure and other measurable characteristics. Hargie, Tourish, and Curtis (2001) studied effects of gender and religion on adolescent self-disclosure using an Irish dataset. They found that gender is the central determinant of disclosure whereas religion, surprisingly, is not. Chiou (2006) used a Taiwanese dataset to study sexual self-disclosure among adolescents and found that adolescents more willing to share sexual intimacy in real life are also more willing to share more in cyberspace. One interesting finding was that males are more willing and active than females in self-disclosure of information on the Internet. Valkenburg and Peter (2007) developed an ‘Internet–attribute–perception’ model and quantified the levels of adolescents' self-disclosure when interacting online with one another. Valkenburg and Peter (2008) used online surveys to interview Dutch adolescents to study their level of social competence. Vieno et al. (2009) estimated the relationship between adolescent self-disclosure, parenting style and antisocial behaviour using an Italian dataset. They suggested that mother–child closeness is a key determinant of whether a child is willing to self-disclose or not.

There are a few other studies that have focused on finding characteristics of adolescents more willing to self-disclose. McAllister and Bregman (1983, 1986) talked about the importance of measurement of the ‘baseline’ (the variable amount of and the tendency towards) that persuades one speaker to match the disclosure of the other party. Other studies have identified other personal characteristics that can influence the level of self-disclosure: flexibility (Neimeyer, Banikiotes, & Winum, 1979), shyness (Schmidt & Fox, 1995) and toughness (Bruch, 2002). Darling, Cumsille, Caldwell, and Dowdy (2006) used self-reported data from 120 adolescents to study disclosure of disagreement. They found that adolescents from authoritative homes and those less involved in disapproved leisure are more likely to disclose disagreement. In this paper, we include some other variables (such as parents' education level, parents' job type, school environment, community environment, family status, birth origin and others), hoping to identify more features that may enhance self-disclosure. Besides, we expect some students may only share some types of problems to their parents. Therefore, we break down our questions in three different categories in order to get more specific results.

Ignatius and Kokkonen (2007) was another study that discussed potential factors that determine whether an individual would self-disclose or not. Their paper, just like ours, focuses on verbal type of self-disclosure. They reviewed and discussed factors in the context of both the person who discloses and the recipient. Recipients usually are people who are trustworthy (Rubin, 1973) and respect confidentiality (Ford, Millstein, Halpern-Felsher, & Irwin, 1997; Woods & McNamara, 1980). It is also worth mentioning that Rubin (1975) found that attractiveness of males increases female participants' level of self-disclosure. Cultural difference is another aspect that affects self-disclosure. Americans are more willing to disclose than Germans and Japanese (Lewin, 1997). Steel (1991) found that Asian university students in North America are less willing to disclose than Caucasian students. Chen (1995) presented an excellent summary of how self-disclosure levels can be affected by verbal style and cultural values. In our dataset, there is also a variable designed to capture cultural differences among the participants.

3. Methodology and data

This study attempts to find the underlying factors that influence students' sharing behaviour: who they share with and what type of issues they share. In our analysis, the dependent variables are dummy variables that represent a dichotomous and mutually exclusive choice. The participants had to choose between two alternatives: share (denoted as one), or not share (denoted as zero) for each of the questions. To estimate such a model, the ordinary least squares method is not appropriate (for details, see Koop, 2008).

The data used3 were collected during May 2009 in three secondary schools, located in three typical areas in Hong Kong, namely: North Point, an urban old developed area with a relatively high population density; Ma On Shan, a newly developed ‘outskirt area’ with primarily middle income families; and Tin Shui Wai, the district with the highest concentration of citizens who receive social assistance.4 Despite convenient sampling being used, there are no reasons to believe these schools are different from any other average secondary schools in Hong Kong. All secondary four students in these three schools were surveyed and in total the dataset contains 308 post-90s students, all born around 1994. To reduce the possibility of participant error, the survey was carried in both Chinese and English and the questionnaires were completed during the lecture time. In other words, the entire cohort of secondary four students in each of these schools have completed and returned the questionnaire. All but one questionnaire received is used in this study.5 The Cronbach alpha for the survey is 0.905 and the same dataset is also used in Chan (2012).

4. Variable descriptions and empirical results

Our study aims at identifying factors affecting students' disclosing behaviour. The dependent variables, y_ij, are dummy variables that can only take one of two values: y_ij = 1 if student is willing to share to person i on subject j; y_ij = 0 otherwise. There are three types of persons (i) identified in the questionnaire: parents (variable PAR), teachers (variable TEA) and friends (variable FRI). These three types of persons are inarguably the most relevant persons that students interact with on a daily basis. Home schools are illegal in Hong Kong because of the 12-year free compulsory education system. In the Chinese culture, parents are parents and teachers are teachers from the perspective of the students, even though they may also be friends of the students. It is generally understood that mixing of identities is unlikely and the three types of persons do not overlap, from the perspective of most students.

One major contribution of this paper is to distinguish between different subjects (j) of problems that students encounter. We break the subjects into three main categories: personal problems (variable PER), educational plans (variable EDU) and academic difficulties (variable ACA). It is reasonable to expect that students are selective not only in term of the type of person they want to share with but also the subject of discussion. On one hand, certain students may want to share education plans with their parents, hoping to get financial assistance, but not personal problems nor academic difficulties. On the other hand, certain students may be more likely to share their academic difficulties with their teachers rather than their friends. Therefore, we believe it is worthwhile to break down our analysis into different subjects instead of problems in general.

Therefore, respondents were asked whether they were willing to disclose to any of the three groups (parents, teachers and friends) on any of the three subjects (personal problems, education plans and academic difficulties). As a result, there are a total of nine primary dependent variables. Besides, we have added an additional dependent variable to examine students who want to share any of the three subjects with any of the three groups. This added variable is denoted variable ALL. If this variable equals zero, which means the responding students are not willing to share at all, we would like to argue that these students are at a higher risk of becoming socially withdrawn than other students. By identifying the characteristics of these students, policy-makers may be able to allocate resources more efficiently to avoid future socio-economic problems.

To summarise, there are a total of 10 dichotomous dependent variables being studied and 10 separate logistic regressions were run. Table 1 lists all dependent variables.

Table 1 Dependent variables.

Variable	Question	Coding
PERPAR	The persons I ask for help about personal problems are	PERPAR = 1 if they ask for help from parents; PERPAR = 0 otherwise.
PERTEA	The persons I ask for help about personal problems are	PERTEA = 1 if they ask for help from teachers; PERTEA = 0 otherwise.
PERFRI	The persons I ask for help about personal problems are	PERFRI = 1 if they ask for help from friends; PERFRI = 0 otherwise.
EDUPAR	The persons I talk to about my future education plan are	EDUPAR = 1 if they ask for help from parents; EDUPAR = 0 otherwise.
EDUTEA	The persons I talk to about my future education plan are	EDUTEA = 1 if they ask for help from teachers; EDUTEA = 0 otherwise.
EDUFRI	The persons I talk to about my future education plan are	EDUFRI = 1 if they ask for help from friends; EDUFRI = 0 otherwise.
ACAPAR	The persons I seek help from about my schoolwork are	ACAPAR = 1 if they ask for help from parents; ACAPAR = 0 otherwise.
ACATEA	The persons I seek help from about my schoolwork are	ACATEA = 1 if they ask for help from teachers; ACATEA = 0 otherwise.
ACAFRI	The persons I seek help from about my schoolwork are	ACAFRI = 1 if they ask for help from friends; ACAFRI = 0 otherwise.
ALL	All questions	ALL = 1 if they ask for help from anyone for any problems;ALL = 0 otherwise.
		We argue that students with ALL = 0 are within the high-risk group to become socially withdrawn.

The independent variables employed in this study include a range of demographic factors and personal characteristics of the students. The complete list of these variables is presented in Table 2. Wheeless (1978) argued that the decision on whom to share with should be correlated to the relative closeness and the level of trust between the individual and the other person. It will be inappropriate for us to perform our analysis without an effort to capture the students' level of comfort and satisfaction towards the three personal groups: parents, teachers and friends. Therefore, we have developed three weighted indexes (namely, family index, school index and community index) on social satisfactions level based on the students' attitudes towards their families, schools and communities. For instance, a higher numerical value of the family index implies the student is more satisfied with family environment and vice versa. Besides, there is a binary question on whether the student is planning to get into a university upon graduation and we treat it as another explanatory variable in this study.

Table 2 Explanatory variables, x_k.

Variable	Question	Coding
GENDER	What is your gender?	GENDER = 1 if male; = 0, otherwise
POB	In which city/country were you born?	POB = 1 if born in Hong Kong; = 0 otherwise
NP	In which district do you currently reside?	NP = 1 if live in North Point; = 0 otherwise
MOS	In which district do you currently reside?	MOS = 1 if live in Ma On Shan; = 0 otherwise
TSW	In which district do you currently reside?	TSW = 1 if live in Tin Shui Wai; = 0 otherwise
SIBLING	How many siblings do you have?	SIBLING = number of siblings the student has
SINGFAM	What is the marriage status of your parents?	SINGFAM = 1 if both parents are separated, widowed, divorced or remarried; SINGFAM = 0 otherwise
INCOME	How much is your family total income per month?	INCOME = median of each income bracket (in thousands)
DADEDU	What is your father's highest attained education qualification?	DADEDU = number of years of education that the father has received
MOMEDU	What is your mother's highest attained education qualification?	MOMEDU = number of years of education that the father has received
LIVINGWITH	With whom do you live most or all of the time currently?	LIVINGWITH = 2 if living with two parents; LIVINGWITH = 1 if living with one parent; LIVINGWITH = 0 if not living with any parents
PUBHOUSE	What is the type of housing you are living in?	PUBHOUSE = 1 if live in public housing; = 0 otherwise
FAMILYIND		A higher value indicates the student believes his/her family is better (index values are between zero and four)
SCHOOLIND		A higher value indicates the student believes his/her school is better (index values are between zero and four)
COMMIND		A higher value indicates the student believes his/her community is better (index values are between zero and four)
UNIVERSITY	I plan to go to university after graduating from my secondary school	UNIVERSITY = 1 if the student plans to go to university; UNIVERSITY = 0 otherwise

5. Findings

The frequencies of all dependent variables are summarised in Table 3. In terms of personal problems, over 72% of the students will share with their friends, 35% will share with their parents whereas only 13% will share with their teachers. In terms of education planning, close to 54% of the students will share with their teachers, 42% of them will share with their parents and only 28% will share with their friends. Students are more likely to share with their teachers. A comparatively small number will share with their friends. In terms of academic difficulties, approximately one-half of the students will share with their teachers (52.44%) and their friends (51.52%). Only 10% will share with their parents.

Table 3 Frequencies of all dependent variables.

	Share with
Problem	Parents (%)	Teachers (%)	Friends (%)
Personal problems	35 (ranking 2)	13 (ranking 3)	72 (ranking 1)
Education Planning	42 (ranking 2)	54 (ranking 1)	28 (ranking 3)
Academic Difficulties	10 (ranking 3)	52.44 (ranking 1)	51.52 (ranking 2)

Note: Fictitious data, for illustration purposes only.

The final dependent variable (ALL) captures those who will not share any of these three types of questions with any of these groups of people. Our results indicate that 5.49% of the students are within this category. In this paper, we have been arguing that these students are within the high-risk group of becoming socially withdrawn. In summary, parents are the lowest preference that the students will share.

As mentioned earlier, ordinary least squares is not an appropriate method to perform regressive analysis in this study. We employ the logistic regression method instead. Table 4 summarises the regression results. It is noted that among the 16 demographic variables employed, 15 (all except TSW, which is a geographical location dummy) are statistically significant in at least one of the 10 regressions.

Table 4 Regression results.

	PERPAR (1)	EDUPAR (2)	ACAPAR (3)	PERTEA (4)	EDUTEA (5)	ACATEA (6)	PERFRI (7)	EDUFRI (8)	ACAFRI (9)	ALL (10)
Constant	− 4.483	− 1.923	− 3.491	− 6.666	− 4.142	− 4.018	− 0.643	0.575	− 0.535	− 9.761
GENDER	− 0.252	− 0.725***	− 0.673	0.568	0.192	− 0.133	− 0.439	− 0.005	− 0.438*	− 1.71**
POB	0.026	0.47	0.215	− 0.605	− 0.076	− 0.067	− 0.275	0.006	− 0.05	1.891**
NP	− 0.286	− 0.151	0.735	− 18.557	− 0.464	− 0.524	− 1.803***	− 0.042	0.135	2.522**
MOS	− 0.528	− 0.282	− 1.11*	0.304	− 0.198	− 0.857***	− 0.338	− 0.264	0.953***	− 2.097*
TSW	0.159	0.364	0.208	0.512	0.156	− 0.006	0.13	− 0.096	0.098	− 1.374
SIBLING	0.222*	− 0.022	0.04	0.154	0.101	0.081	− 0.182	0.034	0.103	0.685
SINGFAM	1.224**	0.848*	− 0.188	0.791	− 0.104	0.03	− 0.053	0.592	0.555	1.351
INCOME	− 0.004	0.002	0.009	0.003	− 0.001	0.007	− 0.02	− 0.007	− 0.023*	0.002
DADEDU	− 0.057	0.001	0.001	− 0.192**	− 0.084	− 0.088	− 0.014	− 0.121**	− 0.002	− 0.222
MOMEDU	0.028	− 0.012	− 0.024	0.017	− 0.002	0.101*	0.06	0.021	0.021	0.28*
LIVINGWI	0.615**	0.102	− 0.14	0.649	0.352	− 0.21	0.224	0.37	0.124	1.033*
PUBHOUSING	− 0.641**	− 0.265	0.275	− 0.063	0.155	0.609**	0.078	− 0.245	− 0.222	1.103
FAMILYIND	1.09***	0.69**	0.987**	− 0.015	0.284	0.236	− 0.388	− 0.354	0.042	1.485**
SCHOOLIND	0.112	0.046	− 0.886	1.782***	1.132***	1.975***	1.546***	0.146	0.327	3.265***
COMMIND	0.539	0.087	1.094**	0.002	0.411	− 0.382	− 0.135	− 0.147	− 0.062	1.116
UNIVERSITY	− 0.404	− 0.035	− 0.749*	0.413	0.394	− 0.231	− 0.85**	− 0.383	− 0.418	− 2.071**
(N-R^2)^a	0.206	0.127	0.155	0.212	0.191	0.221	0.183	0.073	0.116	0.516
ck H–L^b χ^2	49.753	30.495	23.344	36.837	47.493	55.909	40.979	16.108	28.079	60.867
PCP^c	70.8	63.6	89.9	89	64.9	66.9	76	70.8	63.6	96.4

Note: *, **, ***0.1, 0.05 and 0.01 significance level of the coefficient, respectively.

a Nagelkerke R² (N–R²) is the pseudo-R² statistic, which measures the proportion of variance in the dependent variable explained by variance in the independent variables. As the value of the dependent variable in the logistic regression model is either zero or one, the usual R² is not valid. However, there is no equivalent measure in logistic regression. Instead, we use the pseudo-R² statistic.

b Hosmer–Lemeshow test (H–L χ²) of goodness-of-fit for the model.

c The percent correct predictions (PCP) statistic assumes that if estimated p ≥ 0.5 then sharing is expected to occur, will not occur otherwise. The bigger the PCP, the better the model.

d β is the estimated logit coefficient interpreted as the rate of change in the log odds as x changes, which is different from slope coefficients in ordinary least squares regression being the rate of change in y as x changes. Positive β implies the larger the x variables, the more likely students are willing to share with their parents, teachers and friends, whereas negative β implies less likely. For details, see Koop (2008), pp. 281–2.

It was found that females are less likely to become socially withdrawn since they are generally more willing to share education plans with parents and academic issues with friends, compared with males. An earlier study (Steel, 1991) had reported that Caucasians are more open to sharing than Asians, and this study also concluded that students from Mainland China are less willing to share their problems than the citizens of Hong Kong. Equally interesting is that while generally teenagers from both places tend not to share their with parents and teachers, students living in areas with ample open space (like Ma On Shan) are at least more open to sharing with friends than those living in densely populated areas (North Point) with no space for hanging out. This finding is consistent with Yip et al. (2011) on the needs of more space for the younger generation.

Having more siblings also impacts attitude towards sharing problems with parents, teachers and peers since the environment in such households brings family members closer to each other. However, children of single parents are more willing to share their joys and sorrows with their (single) parents, perhaps because they are able to appreciate the difficulties a single parent faces in taking care of the household.

Children of families with higher income were found less willing to share with friends, which may be because of the extensive tutoring facilities they enjoy, although the sense of superiority (over their friends and classmates) they have may also be a contributing factor. This is also reflected in the finding that those who consider their families to be better placed tend to share all problems with their parents while those studying in reputed schools tend to share problems with teachers, as well as friends, most of whom are perhaps from families with equally high standing.

Students living in public housing tend to share schoolwork issues with teachers. This is probably an indication of financial constraints of their parents. Students may want to get out of the poverty cycle and they understand knowledge can change their lives. Therefore, they are more likely to seek academic help from their teachers rather than others. On the other hand, students belonging to lower strata of the society (those living in public housing) tend not to share personal problems with parents, probably because they have less faith in the abilities of their parents.

In this context, children of highly educated fathers are more inclined to share their problems with their fathers rather than teachers and friends but children of highly educated mothers have the opposite tendency, probably because such mothers spend less time on parenting. On the whole, students living with their families are more amenable to share their problems with their parents.

However, students who plan to have university education tend not to share problems with friends and nor do they share schoolwork-related problems with family, perhaps because they are ambitious as well as confident of themselves and their means.

6. Research limitations and future research directions

One of the limitations of this research is that only demographic variables are incorporated in the model to explain the willingness of self-disclosure, but other variables, such as parent–child communication, teacher–student interaction and peer relationships, are not. However, as this study aims at figuring out the potential influence of socio-economic factors on teens' likelihood of self-disclosure, it does not have sufficient scope to conclude on those aspects.

Also the dichotomisation of self-closure into categories of ‘to share’ or ‘not to share’ has placed another limitation on the research that it does not reflect the wide spectrum of self-disclosure as to the amount and frequency in which the Hong Kong post-90s generation may open their mind to parents, friends and teachers around.

It is also mentioned that there is potential bias in terms of data collection and sampling method. The authors have tried to reduce the amount of bias by censuring students of the same cohort in the same school and select schools in different geographic regions. However, the representiveness of the study is still a challenge of this study. Despite this challenge, this dataset can serve as a starting point on studies of youth and teens in the region.

However, limitations could become potential areas for future research. Given the availability of reliable measurement of variables – namely, family closeness, teacher–student relationships and peer harmony – a more comprehensive model, including the results of this study, can possibly be developed to provide more constructive and specific recommendation to encourage teenagers to share about themselves.

The gap between ‘to share’ and ‘not to share’ could be filled in future research by including the frequency and amount of self-disclosure in terms of, for example, hours of family talking per week, and, with the use of popular social networking technologies, numbers of tweets per week or notes in Facebook, and so forth. Taking the modern social networking technological applications into account could be important to future research as those advancements have changed the ways in which the youngsters are communicating with others. One advantage is that they could provide an objective measurement on the frequency of the users sharing their opinion. They may even categorise it by types of content.

7. Conclusions

This study has surveyed the willingness of post-90s students in Hong Kong to disclose personal problems, education plans and academic difficulties and challenges with their parents, teachers and peers. It is found out that these students are selective to share what type of problems to which type of persons. They are more likely to share individual problems with their friends, and more likely to share their education planning issues and academic challenges with their teachers. Moreover, in our final regression result, our data indicate that students who are born in Hong Kong live with parent(s), have highly educated mothers, believe their families are better placed and their schools are better (than average), have more siblings, and tend to share more than others (relevant variables: POB, LIVINGWI, MOMEDU, FAMILYIND, SCHOOLIND, SIBLING).

Nevertheless, this study reaffirms the importance of closeness of relationships and self-disclosure as pointed out in the literature (for example, Ford et al. 1997; Ignatius & Kokkonen, 2007; Rubin, 1973; Woods & McNamara, 1980). If a student has a good relationship with family, he/she is more willing to share almost every subject with parents. A similar effect of closeness of relationship can also be found in schools. If a student believes the school is more trustworthy, there is greater willing to share with teachers. These personal relationships are among the most important determinants on whether the youngster is willing to share with others.

Therefore, as a conclusion of this paper, the authors urge the Hong Kong government to implement family friendly policies to help build closer relationships among families, such as flexible working hours and workplace flexibility, and so forth. This way, Hong Kong citizens will have time to relax, exercise and improve family harmony. A good work–life balance is essential for a healthy society. While some other studies have shown that this serious social phenomenon can lead to more instances of divorce, obesity, illness, accidents and suicide among adults, this paper argues that these factors (fatigue, tiredness, etc.) have significant impact on the next generation in terms of willingness to self-disclose. If the number of children in individual families continues to decrease, and the number of working housewives continues to rise, the government should further strength family-friendly policies. The next generation's voice needs to be heard or there will be devastating socio-economic consequences.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Alan T.Y. Chan

Alan T.Y. Chan is currently an associate professor in the Department of Business Administration at Crandall University in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada. His research areas include game theory, industrial organization, and contract theory.

Shu-Kam Lee

Shu-Kam Lee's current areas of research interest include economic modeling and social and economic issues of China and Hong Kong. The research findings have been published in various international refereed journals and published in edited volumes. He has co-edited three books and coauthored one book and is a review panel member of the Journal of Information, Communication & Ethics in Society (JICES, UK).

Notes

^1. A helicopter parent is a colloquial, early twenty-first-century term for a parent who pays extremely close attention to his or her child's or children's experiences and problems, particularly educational.

^2. We want to thank Robert Williams, Edith Samuel and Cathy Rogers for their help in the literature review.

^3. We want to thank J.C. Chan for his permission to use this dataset. The dataset was originally designed for a doctorate thesis at the University of Nottingham, UK.

^4. Tin Shui Wai has the highest number of Comprehensive Social Security Assistance (CSSA) recipients, unemployment CSSA recipients and battered spouses in Hong Kong. For details, see Official Record of Proceedings (2004).

^5. Please refer to Chan (2012) for more information about the dataset.