Understanding Mechanisms of Media Use for the Social Sharing of Emotion: The Role of Media Affordances and Habitual Media Use

Abstract. The social sharing of emotion is the process of communicating with others about one’s significant emotional experiences. Recent research has shown that interpersonal media such as texting, voice calling, and social network site posts are widely used for social sharing, yet it has not investigated how and why people use these media. This article takes on the task of investigating the mechanism responsible for media selection for the first instance of social sharing. A survey of undergraduates ( N = 227) shows that respondents’ media use for sharing positive and negative events was driven by their perceptions of media affordances and by their habitual media use with the target of their disclosure. For positive events, respondents articulated preferences for accessibility, while for negative events, they preferred bandwidth and privacy affordances. Habitual media use was the strongest predictor of media use for social sharing, but the perceived importance of these affordances predicted media use above and beyond media habits. These findings extend the social-sharing framework and the literature on media selection in social contexts.