The Benefit-Cost Balance of Chinese Adults’ Social Interaction Behaviors on Social Media

Social Capital, Privacy Concerns and Attachment Anxiety

Bibliographic Data

ID16913833
AuthorsHongchao Hu (0000-0002-1562-9093, North China Electric Power University), Lin Shi (0000-0002-4934-6649, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences), Xinzhou Xie (Peking University, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume14
Issue4
Publication date2024-10-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSAGE Open (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2158-2440 • E-ISSN: 2158-2440
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/21582440241300826
OpenAlexW4404496790
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited90

Social media, whose core element is interactivity, has become an important tool for people to establish and maintain relationships. According to social exchange theory (SET), weighing costs and benefits in the context of online interpersonal interactions can also guide people to decide whether to make a connection with others. While there have been studies of social interaction, few have looked at specific behaviors, including sharing and responding, within the same framework. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the benefit-cost balance of social interaction behaviors on social media that involve self-disclosures and proactive interactions such as commenting, forwarding, and liking. Via an online survey of Chinese adults ( n = 2,767) and structural equation modeling (SEM) techniques, we found that social media users were at once motivated by bridging social capital and restrained by privacy concerns when making decisions regarding self-disclosure. However, users were not swayed by privacy concerns when engaging in proactive interactions; instead, they were encouraged by both bonding and bridging social capital. Moreover, the benefit-cost model was extended by investigating the moderating effect of attachment anxiety and found that the more anxious individuals were about attachment, the weaker the effects of bridging social capital and the stronger the effects of privacy concerns on their social interaction behaviors, which complemented the existing literature at the level of individual differences

Anxiety · Developmental psychology · Political science · Psychiatry · Social anxiety · Social capital · Social media · Sociology · Impact of Technology on Adolescents · Privacy, Security, and Data Protection · Psychology · Social Media and Politics · Social Psychology

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