Online social networks greatly facilitate social exchange among friends. At times, for amusement, individuals may be targeted by friends' playful teases, which often involve exposing individuals' private embarrassing information, such as information that reveals their past indecent behavior, mischief, or clumsiness. Although individuals sometimes do enjoy the humor, they might also be offended by the involuntary exposure. Drawing on social exchange theory, this paper elucidates the consequences of an embarrassing exposure in online social networks. Specifically, this study examines the effects of information dissemination and network commonality on individuals' exchange assessment as well as how this assessment shapes their behavioral responses. The results of our experiment provide strong evidence that information dissemination and network commonality jointly influence individuals' perceived privacy invasion and perceived relationship bonding. In addition, whereas perceived privacy invasion increases transactional avoidance, it reduces approach behavior. Furthermore, whereas perceived relationship bonding impedes both transactional avoidance and interpersonal avoidance, it leads to approach behavior. The theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.
Privacy is of prime importance to many individuals when they attempt to develop online social relationships. Nonetheless, it has been observed that individuals' behavior is at times inconsistent with their privacy concerns, e.g., they disclose substantial private information in synchronous online social interactions, even though they are aware of the risks involved. Drawing on the hyperpersonal framework and the privacy calculus perspective, this paper elucidates the interesting roles of privacy concerns and social rewards in synchronous online social interactions by examining the causes and the behavioral strategies that individuals utilize to protect their privacy. An empirical study involving 251 respondents was conducted in online chat rooms. Our results indicate that individuals utilize both self-disclosure and misrepresentation to protect their privacy and that social rewards help explain why individuals may not behave in accordance with their privacy concerns. In addition, we find that perceived anonymity of others and perceived intrusiveness affect both privacy concerns and social rewards. Our findings also suggest that higher perceived anonymity of self decreases individuals' privacy concerns, and higher perceived media richness increases social rewards. Generally, this study contributes to the information systems literature by integrating the hyperpersonal framework and the privacy calculus perspective to identify antecedents of privacy trade-off and predict individuals' behavior in synchronous online social interactions.