Blessed Oblivion? Knowledge and Metacognitive Accuracy in Online Social Networks

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Moll, Ricarda^* | Pieschl, Stephanie | Bromme, Rainer

Affiliations: Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Germany

Correspondence: [*] Address for correspondence: Ricarda Moll, Institut für Psychologie, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Fliednerstr. 21, 48149 Münster, Germany. Tel.: +49 (0) 251 83 39497; Fax: +49 (0) 251 83 39105; [email protected].

Abstract: In order to reap the social gratifications of Online Social Networks (OSNs), users often disclose self-related information, making them potentially vulnerable to their online audiences. We give a brief overview of our theoretical ideas and empirical research about additional cognitive and metacognitive factors relevant for the perception of risk when self-disclosing information in OSNs. More specifically, we discuss disclosure-related knowledge and metacognitive accuracy and describe three studies in which we investigated if OSN users knew what contents they had disclosed, to which audiences these were accessible, and if users were aware of the extent of their own knowledge (metacognitive accuracy). We found that OSN users remembered their disclosed contents well but struggled to remember specific audiences. Additionally, they were hardly aware of these knowledge differences.

Keywords: Self-disclosure, privacy, Online Social Networks, knowledge, metacognitive accuracy

DOI: 10.3233/DEV-14155

Journal: International Journal of Developmental Science, vol. 9, no. 2, pp. 57-60, 2015