Predicting self disclosure on public blogs

The majority of blogs are personal in nature and open to the public. While self disclosure is essential for relationship development, people who publicly post intimate information may incur privacy risks. This study aims to explore how personality traits and communication context influence the level of self disclosure on personal blogs. The analyses of survey data from 148 bloggers suggest that offline self disclosure tendencies persist online in the blogosphere. In addition, extraverted bloggers, surprisingly, disclosed less personal information than their introverted peers. Finally, contrary to the prediction of social disinhibition theory, bloggers who thought they could be identified by their readers reported higher levels of self disclosure.