Young adults’ attitudes toward online self-disclosure and social connection as predictors of a preference for online social interactions: the mediating effect of relational closeness

ABSTRACT Nowadays, computer-mediated-communication (CMC) has become integral to the interpersonal relationships, but the preference for CMC might produce negative outcomes. Specifically, attitudes toward online communication have been found concurrently associated with online relational closeness (RC) and problematic preference for online social interactions (POSI). Thus, mixed evidence regarding the effect of online communication attitudes has been found. The present paper aimed at validating online communication attitudes measures and exploring their direct and indirect effect on POSI, via RC. Two studies have been conducted. Study 1 evaluated the psychometric properties of online self-disclosure (OSD) and online social connection (OSC) subscales on a young adult sample (N = 820). Study 2 (N = 588) explored the direct and indirect predictive role of OSD and OSC on POSI via RC. The OSD and OSC subscales showed good internal consistency and reliability providing reliable instruments. Concerning the mediation analyses, the findings showed that both OSD and OSC predicted POSI. RC only partially mediated the relationship between online communication attitudes and POSI. Therefore, the online communication promotes online intimacy but, concurrently, it might represent a risk factor for psychological outcomes, such as POSI. The study provided novel findings concerning CMC and contributes toward the ongoing debate on possible predictors of POSI.