Context Collapse in Self-Consciousness on Social Media is Gendered

Women tend to be more self-conscious than men. Drawing on computer-mediated communication perspectives on context collapse and objectification theory, we show, however, that gender differences in self-consciousness manifest differently between offline and social media contexts. Participants (Studies 1 and 2; N = 2770; 58% women) completed measures of self-consciousness specified to indicate a) offline and b) social media contexts in c) private (i.e., concerning internal states) and d) public (i.e., concerning external appearance) senses. Findings showed that public self-consciousness was pronounced on social media in women relative to men (Study 1). Greater femininity predicted greater public self-consciousness on social media as well (Study 2), suggesting the effect goes beyond gender categories. We corroborated these findings with women’s qualitative experiences, which further suggested the prominent role of image-based platforms and attempts to manage self-consciousness online (Study 3; N = 37, 76% women). Our findings imply unique gender dynamics on social media, namely a context collapse centering public self-consciousness in women on social media.