Did he really post that?!: an examination of social media appropriateness
Date
2018
Authors
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Journal ISSN
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
The purpose of this study is to examine college-aged students’ judgements
about the appropriateness of social media posts, including the attributes used to
make those judgements. Two hundred and eighty-six students (N = 286) in large
Communication classes at the University of Delaware completed two analogous
versions of a survey asking them to evaluate the appropriateness of six different
fictitious Facebook posts with the topics of health, money, and relationships.
Results indicated that the individual effects of tone (positive or negative),
topic (health, money, or relationship), and set (one or two) all played a significant
role in respondents’ evaluation of the appropriateness of Facebook posts.
Negative posts were judged most harshly on attributes “too intimate,” “personal,”
“dramatic,” “dirty laundry,” and “don’t need to know.” Positive posts were judged
the most favorably on the single attribute “happy.” The tone topic interaction
effect was significant in most cases.