than to their parents and online audiences. Bloggers seem to express their personal interests and experiences in a wide range of topics online to document their lives or to maintain their online social networks." Dietz-Uhler, Bishop Clark, and Howard studied online chatting, and noted that "once a norm of self-disclosure forms, it is reinforced by statements supportive of self-disclosures but not of non-self disclosures". Cross-cultural social penetration Studies have rarely considered the differences that cultural nuances can play in social penetration, particularly when it is between two cultures which are either high context or low context. However, it was found that social penetration theory can be generalized to North American-Japanese dyads, which was further supported when comparing the research to the highest level of intimacy marital communication. The same held to be true when it came to analyzing the level of intimacy between different dyads across the spectrum, but it was found that “the results from the analysis of the dispersion scores revealed that mixed dyads had significantly less agreement than low intimacy dyads on the amount of personalized communication and less, but not significantly less, agreement than low intimacy dyads.” Therefore, conflict came more from differences in intimacy than from differences in cultural contexts. The study also found that opposite-sex dyads were generally more personalized than same-sex dyads, regardless of culture. Perceived difficulty of communication had a high negative correlation, suggesting that as communicative difficulty is reduced, a relationship may grow. The opposite was found to be true. Criticism One of the common criticisms of SPT is that it can have a narrow, linear approach to explaining how human beings interact with one another and disclose information. SPT also focuses more on early stages of human connection, and does not take into account the various ways people get close, and how multi-layered and varied closer relationships can be. It does not apply as well to coworkers, neighbors, acquaintances, or other forms of fleeing relationships, and has been criticized for assuming all relationships will follow the same direction. Likewise, the theory is criticized for not being as concise when describing established relationships, such as lifelong friends, family members, or couples that have been married for several decades and would presumably be as intimate as possible. Another concept called into question is the idea of reciprocity and when it is the most impactful. It is assumed that reciprocity is highest in