Abstract

Today, people form and maintain relationships by interacting with others online, especially through social media platforms which encompass the risk of permanent exposure to unspecified audiences. Contrary to these persistent social media, however, Instagram Stories are unique in that its posts are sef-deleted within 24 hours. This ‘ephemerality’ of social media is well known for promoting one’s self-disclosure online. Based on this notion, this study examined the mechanism of perceived ephemerality on self-disclosure through the privacy calculus model. In particular, we examined the influence of social presence, perceived enjoyment and control as the benefit as well as the privacy concern and impression management concern as the risk of self-disclosure. Results show that the effect of perceived ephemerality on social presence was not significant and therefore the modified model was tested by eliminating the path. As a result, perceived ephemerality had a positive influence on perceived pleasure, which in turn showed a positive correlation with self-disclosure intention. In addition, perceived ephemerality showed a positive relationship with perceived control which had a negative effect on privacy concerns and impression management concerns respectively. However, contrary to our expectation, privacy concern and impression management concern had a positive influence on self-disclosure, therefore confirming the privacy paradox and strategic impression management. This study provides academic and managerial implications by examining the relationship between ephemerality of Instagram story and meaningful variables in social media self-disclosure.