Factors Influencing Adolescent Impression Management on Social Networking Sites

Abstract

I employ the uses and gratifications approach and goals-planning-action model to forward hypotheses and research questions about the motives, self-presentation strategies, and audience perceptions associated with adolescent and young adult use of Facebook and Twitter. I offer conclusions regarding my hypotheses and research questions using data from a cross-sectional online survey of 202 adolescents and young adults. Results suggest that participants are more likely to use Facebook to fulfill social and content gratifications than Twitter, which provides partial support for my predictions (H1a & H1b). Additionally, participants are more likely to use Twitter to fulfill process and technology gratifications than Facebook (RQ1). Furthermore, the only self-presentation concern about which participants reported a significant difference was that of supplication, which was contrary to my predictions (H2a & H2b), but provided some clarity in terms of the differences between self-presentation concerns on Facebook and Twitter (RQ2). As expected, participants expressed significantly greater familiarity with their audience on Facebook than on Twitter (H3). Contrary to my predictions, however, participants reported significantly greater concern for impression management on Facebook than on Twitter (H4). I discuss how these findings provide directions for future research on motives and self-presentation strategies on Facebook and Twitter.