The Impact of Perceptual Disfluency on Memory for Personal Information on Social Media

• In Event: Computer-Mediated Communication

Abstract

Users of social networking sites (SNSs) do not remember all of their past self-disclosures or privacy settings which in turn prevents their rational privacy management. One potential contributing factor might be the experience of fluency while using SNSs which is theoretically linked to superficial processing. In this experiment, N = 72 participants read either fluent or disfluent social media profiles on a fictitious SNS, answered questionnaires about Usability, Trust, and Willingness to Self-Disclose regarding this SNS, and their Memory for the content of the fictitious SNS profiles was tested. For each memory test item Confidence ratings were collected and their Accuracy was determined. Results show significantly better Memory and Confidence for the disfluent than for the fluent condition; however, fluency had no effects on Accuracy, Usability, Trust, and Willingness to Self-Disclose. Implications for designing SNS and for users’ digital literacy are discussed.

Authors

• Stephanie Pieschl, Westfaelische Wilhelms-Universitaet Muenster

• Frank Schmischke, Westfaelische Wilhelms-U Muenster

• Ricarda Moll, Westfaelische Wilhelms-Universitaet Muenster