Impressions matter more than privacy: The moderating roles of affordances in the relation between social anxiety and online safety-seeking behaviors

Though socially anxious individuals tend to seek safety, little is known about whether this relationship depends on context, including the affordances of social networking sites (SNSs) provide anonymity and publicness, safety-seeking can be explained by impression management, privacy calculus or both. Based psychobiological model anxiety, we conducted two studies (Study 1: N = 103, Study 2: 1,184) examine contextual dependence behaviors disentangle which types concerns mediate effect anxiety behaviors. Results indicated that safety SNSs, tendency stronger in less anonymous SNSs. Both evaluative relation between behaviors, while indirect than privacy. Publicness an SNS strengthened these effects. These findings highlight importance perceptions different online environments, thereby enrich literature related media use.