Do bloggers who hide their visual identity more also share more personal information?

Details

The study examined whether bloggers’ anonymity was related to how much personal information they shared. It considered both visual anonymity and anonymity in how bloggers expressed themselves, rather than treating anonymity as a single feature.

Greater visual anonymity was not associated with greater personal disclosure, while findings for anonymity in expression were mixed. Bloggers whose intended audience did not include people they knew offline also reported feeling more anonymous than those whose audience included offline acquaintances. That audience finding does not establish that they shared more personal information.

This was an online survey, not an experiment that changed bloggers’ anonymity, so it cannot show whether anonymity causes people to share more. The abstract does not report sample size or effect estimates, limiting assessment of the findings’ precision and how broadly they apply. The authors also identify bloggers’ reasons for revealing or concealing their identities as a question for future research.