"I Am 30F and Need Advice!": A Mixed-Method Analysis of the Effects of Advice-Seekers' Self-Disclosure on Received Replies
Examines how self-disclosure of age and gender in Reddit’s r/Advice community shapes the prevalence and detail of received feedback. Uses hurdle negative binomial regression and discourse analysis to show that self-disclosure enables relatable context but comes at a cost of greater identifiability.
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Self-disclosure on Reddit creates a trade-off between relatable context and identifiability, since posters who share age and gender receive more tailored advice but become more legible to the platform and its users. The study reveals how Reddit's pseudonymous architecture creates a disclosure economy where personal information becomes a currency exchanged for social support.
Examines how self-disclosure of age and gender in Reddit's r/Advice shapes the replies received, using hurdle negative binomial regression and discourse analysis. Reveals that the same advice request acquires different meaning depending on disclosed demographics, as "30F" and "30M" elicit structurally different responses, demonstrating that platform-encoded identity markers function as semantic context that transforms how text is interpreted.