merely looking at a stranger s twitter or facebook feed is nt interesting , because it seems like blather . follow it for a day , though , and it begins to feel like a short story ; follow it for a month , and it s a novel.thompson ( 2008 )  merely looking at a stranger s twitter or facebook feed is nt interesting , because it seems like blather . follow it for a day , though , and it begins to feel like a short story ; follow it for a month , and it s a novel . although many social media platforms are mainly used for maintaining existing relationships , it is also common to stumble across the messages of strangers . on twitter for example , it is relatively common to follow people one knows only online ( utz , 2016 ) . a survey among twitter users has shown that people develop ambient intimacy , i.e. a feeling of closeness to others followed on social media , for some of the people they follow on twitter ( lin , levordasha , & utz , 2016 ) . classical studies on relationship formation focus on the role of intimacy in self - disclosure ( altman & taylor , 1973 ) , although studies on ( semi- ) public social media have shown that entertaining posts can also create a feeling of closeness ( lin et  al . however , as these studies have been correlational and relied on self - reported judgments / recall of the content of posts , it is not clear which factors drive the development of a feeling of closeness . to answer this question , we conducted two experiments in which we varied the number of posts and manipulated for the target person not only the intimacy but also the narrativity of self - disclosure . the latter factor has hitherto been neglected , although the quote at the beginning of this paper indicates that narrativity and story value of posts might matter . additionally , we look at potential influence factors such as perceived appropriateness and entertainment value of posts . by experimentally disentangling the role of intimacy and narrativity , we contribute to a better understanding of the processes underlying relationship formation on social media . in the following paragraphs , we will introduce the concepts of self - disclosure frequency , intimacy , and narrativity on social media , and its difference to self - disclosure in traditional one - to - one communication . relevant previous research on the effects of self - disclosure on familiarity , closeness , and social attraction will be discussed . conceptually speaking , broadcasting status updates / posts on social media that contain any form of self - information can be treated as self - disclosure ( lin et  al . , 2016 ) . the posts could contain descriptive information such as what one has done today , and/or evaluative information such as how one feels about an event . in previous research , the degree of self - disclosure was often assessed along two dimensions : disclosure breadth ( e.g. , the amount of self - relevant statements made during an interaction ) and disclosure depth ( i.e. , the level of disclosure intimacy ) ( altman & taylor , 1973 ) . public self - disclosures on social media have some unique properties compared to self - disclosure in traditional one - to - one communication . first , when the disclosing self - information is highly intimate , it is more likely to be perceived as inappropriate when one broadcasts it online than discloses it privately ( bazarova , 2012 ) ; therefore , intimate self - disclosure on social media often decreases interpersonal attraction ( baruh & cemalclar , 2015 ) . second , public self - disclosure is often not directed to a single person , but simultaneously to several people . disclosure recipients might not feel addressed in this case ; and self - disclosure might have smaller effects on relationships ( burke & kraut , 2014 ) . third , public self - disclosure from a specific person is often embedded in a stream of others information ; hence disclosure recipients may not pay enough attention to it . in addition to the two dimensions of self - disclosure breadth and depth , we assume that self - disclosure narrativity is also important in the context of social media . we will discuss the role of disclosure intimacy and narrativity later , and first introduce the literature on the effects of self - disclosure frequency on familiarity , closeness , and social attraction . we chose these three dependent variables because they were often discussed in previous literature ( norton et  al . 2012 ) , but conceptually they are slightly different from each other . in this paper , familiarity refers to the state of being accustomed to something or someone . it is knowledge of something or someone , which mainly depends on disclosure frequency ( finkel et  al . , 2015 , pp . 139 ) , regardless of the valence . closeness and social attraction are more likely to be influenced by the content of self - disclosure . closeness covers the emotional facet , whereas social attraction refers to the behavioral component , e.g. wanting to have a coffee with the target . even though there are some differences in private and public self - disclosure , recent studies indicated that browsing social media helps to enhance familiarity , creates awareness / knowledge of online contacts ( levordashka & utz , 2016 ) , and generates a feeling of closeness ( lin et  al . , 2016 ) . familiarity is generated when an individual has a certain level of exposure to the target person ( finkel et  al . therefore , a greater amount of public self - disclosure on social media should also generate a higher level of familiarity . when it comes to closeness and attraction , findings are less consistent . in private conversations , when perceived as appropriate , greater amounts of disclosure information were often associated with more liking of the discloser ( for review , see collins & miller , 1994 ) . for unacquainted strangers , self - disclosure often leads to more closeness ( a. aron , melinat , aron , vallone , & bator , 1997 ) , which creates familiarity - based liking ( berger and calabrese , 1975 , zajonc , 1968 ) , and positive interpersonal impressions such as social attraction ( sprecher et  al . , 2012 ) . this is due to  mere exposure effect  and  uncertainty reduction theory  . the former asserted that the more frequently one is exposed to a certain thing or person , the more likable that thing or person appears to be ( moreland and zajonc , 1982 , zajonc , 1968 ) . the latter theory indicated that the more one is exposed to other s self - disclosure , the more uncertainty is reduced , therefore liking is increased ( sunnafrank , 1986 ) . however , other researchers have found that more information about a person may decrease liking due to a higher level of perceived dissimilarity . less is more  hypothesis ( norton , frost , & ariely , 2007 ) . the mixed findings can be explained by the information - processing approach of attraction ( ajzen , 1977 , dalto et  al . , 1979 ) . it suggests that liking is determined by having positive beliefs about an individual : the more positive the beliefs , the greater the attraction ; however , if the content of self - discloser leads to negative beliefs ( e.g. , due to perceived dissimilarity or inappropriateness ) , the attraction should be decreased ( ajzen , 1977 ) . similar to the familiarity and attraction link , we assume that , after reading other s public self - disclosure on social media , a feeling of closeness can be generated only under certain conditions ( i.e. , when positive beliefs are generated ) . in this case , in addition to disclosure frequency , the content of self - disclosure is more important in predicting social attraction . in offline relationship building , but it is still a debatable question whether disclosing intimate information promotes or undermines interpersonal attraction and closeness on sns . for existing interpersonal relationships , researchers have found that receiving a larger proportion of superficial disclosures decreases relationship satisfaction ( rains , brunner , & oman , 2014 ) . self - disclosure on sns , when perceived as more intimate , increases the feeling of connection toward existing online friends ( lin et  al . , 2016 , utz , 2015 ) . however , such a positive effect of disclosure intimacy on building interpersonal relationships is stronger for messages on private channels than for public status updates ( bazarova , 2012 ) . in the context of public status updates , we focus on situations in which an individual had no previous interactions with a target , using a so - called zero - acquaintance paradigm in which perceivers make judgments about strangers without having the opportunity to interact ( albright , kenny , & malloy , 1988 ) . baruh and cemalclar ( 2015 ) have found that broadcasting intimate disclosure messages may attract more attention but not necessarily increase attraction . however , it is important to take the role of appropriateness into account , as intimate disclosure in public is often perceived as inappropriate ( bazarova , 2012 ) . in baruh and cemalclar s ( 2015 ) study , the level of disclosure appropriateness was altered essentially when the level of disclosure intimacy was manipulated . it was difficult to conclude whether the decreased attraction is because of the high - intimacy or high - inappropriateness . the current study aims to examine the role of disclosure intimacy by minimizing the difference in the perceived appropriateness of high- and low - intimacy disclosure messages . we used stimulus material that was judged as appropriate in a pretest , and expected that under these circumstances intimate self - disclosure should have a positive role in increasing closeness and social attraction . a second factor that has been neglected in prior research on the development of closeness on social media we conceptualized narrative self - disclosure as revealing information about oneself in a story - telling way . on social media , pieces of self - disclosure information are treated as high in narrativity when they , taken together , are able to form a continuous and coherent story . vorderer ( 2016 ) argued that narratives play a central role in new media . for example , people are transported into the narratives in novels or movies ( bilandzic , 2006 , green et  al . , 2004 ) , and they may develop a feeling of closeness to the character by merging into the narrative . compared with the same events that are portrayed through less narrativity , higher levels of narrativity often correspond to greater vividness , ease of narrative understanding , engagement , and emotional responses ( busselle & bilandzic , 2009 ) . considering the strong desire of people for stories , we thus assume that narrative self - disclosure should have a positive effect on perceived closeness and social attraction . in sum , we developed the following hypotheses.h1the amount of public self - disclosure increases familiarity.h2intimate self - disclosure , when perceived as appropriate , increases ( a ) perceived closeness and ( b ) social attraction.h3narrative self - disclosure increases ( a ) perceived closeness and ( b ) social attraction . the amount of public self - disclosure increases familiarity . intimate self - disclosure , when perceived as appropriate , increases ( a ) perceived closeness and ( b ) social attraction . narrative self - disclosure increases ( a ) perceived closeness and ( b ) social attraction . in order to examine these hypotheses , two pretests and two studies were conducted . the two pretests were conducted in order to create proper stimuli before conducting the main studies . the initial main study was followed up with an online version of the same study : study 1 was conducted in a lab and with a limited amount of participants ; study 2 aimed to replicate the results of study 1 , and was an online questionnaire with a larger sample size . in order to examine h1 , a special design that enables a quasi - experience of sns browsing was applied ( see a sample of the stimuli in fig .  1 ) . we created a fake sns called social net , and mocked - up web pages that resemble the layout of facebook news feed , including posts , user names , and profile pictures . in our scenario , the target discloser posted 5 times , and the other four disclosers posted 5 times , 3 times , 1 time , and 1 time , respectively . in order to test h2 and h3 , we adopted a 2 ( high- vs. low - intimacy disclosure )    2 ( high- vs. low - narrativity disclosure ) between - subject design . we created four versions of disclosure messages for the target discloser . in each condition , the five manipulated disclosure posts of a target discloser ( as described in appendix a ) were embedded ( in the same order ) in another ten distracting posts from the other four disclosers / distractors ( see fig .  1 ) . two pretests were conducted in order to compose the stimuli for the main experiment ( see in appendix a ) . in the first pretest , 56 disclosure messages were selected and adapted from real tweets on twitter . sixty - four german participants evaluated the levels of intimacy and appropriateness for each individual message after translation into german . based on these results , we composed four versions of target posts ( i.e. , disclosure messages of the target person ) after adjusting the level of narrativity . this version of posts was similar to the final version of posts in appendix a. we manipulated the level of intimacy by adding information about one s emotions , inner thoughts , and beliefs ; and we manipulated the level of narrativity by adding more details and transitional descriptions . the levels of disclosure narrativity , intimacy , and appropriateness of each stimulus were assessed by another 52 german participants using a between - subject design . the results of the second pretest indicated that such stimuli can successfully manipulate the levels of disclosure intimacy and narrativity accordingly , and the levels of appropriateness were above the middle point of 4 in all conditions . in study 1 , participants were asked to complete an online questionnaire in the lab . they were asked to imagine that they just created an account on a newly launched sns called  social net  and had followed some other users profile as recommended by the system . they were also informed that many social net users feel at ease to keep their postings as a digital public diary on that sns . this instruction helped us to investigate the effect of self - disclosure intimacy when public self - disclosure is legitimized and more likely to be perceived as appropriate . it hopefully can minimize the difference of the appropriateness level between high- and low - intimacy conditions . then participants were randomly assigned into one of the four conditions , and they were allowed to browse the stimuli as long as they wished to . as soon as they finished browsing , the levels of familiarity were measured by asking ten profiles were shown in the first column of the question matrix ( in a randomized order ) : the profiles of the five disclosers that were shown in the stimulus and five new profiles that served as distractors . participants could choose  do not remember  if they felt unfamiliar with the profile owner , and they were supposed to choose that option for the distractors . first , the five profile pictures of the disclosers were shown again with the following instruction :  compared to other users on social net , how close do you feel to the following profile owners  . participants could score between 1 and 7 , or choose  no impression  if they could not recall . second , immediately after the one - item measure of closeness , the perceived closeness to the target discloser was measured by using the propinquity scale ( walther & bazarova , 2008 ) with a 7-point semantic differential scale ( see more information about measurements in appendix b ) . in addition , perceived social attraction of the target was measured by social attraction scale with a 7-point likert scale ( mccroskey & mccain , 1974 ) . then the five posts of the target discloser ( target posts ) were shown again , and participants were asked to evaluate the posts of the target discloser with several seven - point semantic differential scales . the perceived levels of intimacy and appropriateness for the message sets were measured with scales used in bazarova s ( 2012 ) study . disclosure narrativity of the target posts was measured with three self - created items about disclosure coherence ( e.g. ,  not coherent - coherent  ) . previous research found that the entertainment value of messages significantly predicts the feeling of closeness to the discloser on social media ( lin et  al . therefore , we also measured the perceived entertainment value of the target posts with one - item for exploratory purposes . a summary of the items for these measurements and the cronbach s alphas are reported in appendix b. other demographical information such as age , gender , as well as social media usage behavior was measured at the end of the questionnaire . participants , in both pretests and the first study , were recruited from a local panel in germany . participants should be a social media user and 18 years and older , and they were paid according to a standard of 8 euro / hour . although we initially aimed for a sample size of 160 , only 145 participants completed the main experiment after we extended the lab study for another three weeks . in order to prevent participants clicking through the stimuli without browsing , we dropped the cases in which participants spent less than 30  s in reading each stimulus . we estimated each status update would take about 2  s to skim through ; therefore 15 posts might take 30  s. this selection criteria resulted in a final sample of 139 ( 29 males ; mage  =  23.58 years ; sd  =  4.29 years ) . table  1 depicts the descriptive results for the degrees of familiarity with the five existing and the five new profile owners . out of 139 participants , only 5 participants ( 1.4% ) reported  do not remember  seeing the target profile owner , whereas , for those distracting new profiles , more than 101 participants ( 72.7% ) correctly recognized that they were not shown in the stimuli before . in addition , the level of familiarity with the target discloser ( m  =  4.69 , sd  =  1.86 ) was already higher than the level of familiarity with the third discloser who posted three times ( m  =  4.06 , sd  =  1.67 ) , t(124 )  =  4.81 , p  <  0.001 , let  alone those who disclosed less often ( see more comparison information in table  1 ) . we also measured the feelings of closeness to the five disclosers ( see results in table  2 ) . similar to the pattern of familiarity , participants felt closer to the profiles owners who disclose more frequently : the target profile owner who posted five times ( m  =  3.64 , sd  =  1.85 ) was perceived as closer compared to the profile owner who posted three times ( m  =  3.14 , sd  =  1.60 ) , t(129 )  =  3.06 , p  =  0.001 , who was in turn perceived as emotionally closer than the two disclosers who posted less frequently ( see more information in table  2 ) . descriptive results for the key variables can be found in table  3 , and correlation statistics can be found in table  4 . the results of the manipulation check showed that we manipulated the disclosure intimacy and narrativity successfully . a two - way anova showed participants in the high - intimacy condition perceived the target posts as more intimate ( m  =  5.69 , sd  =  0.91 ) than that in the low - intimacy condition ( m  =  4.49 , sd  =  1.08 ) , f(1 , 135 )  =  49.67 , p  < there was no main effect of narrativity condition , nor an interaction effect for perceived intimacy . another two - way anova showed that participants in the high - narrativity condition perceived the target posts as more coherent as a story ( m  =  6.02 , sd  =  0.96 ) than that in the low - narrativity condition ( m  =  3.89 , sd  =  1.39 ) , f(1 , 135 )  =  155.61 , p  <  0.001 , p  =  0.447 . as expected , there was no main effect of intimacy condition , nor an interaction effect for perceived coherence . in previous research , disclosure appropriateness was highly associated with disclosure intimacy on social media ( bazarova , 2012 ) . therefore , we also examined whether there is a group difference of appropriateness using a two - way anova . the result showed that participants in the high - intimacy condition ( m  =  4.38 , sd  =  1.10 ) also perceived the disclosure as slightly less appropriate than that in the low - intimacy condition ( m  =  4.83 , sd  =  1.27 ) , f(1 , 135 )  =  4.88 , p  =  0.029 , p  =  0.035 . this result showed that it is difficult to disentangle the concepts of perceived intimacy and perceived appropriateness in the context of public self - disclosure on social media . even though we tried to make intimate public self - disclosure as appropriate as possible , it was still rated as slightly less appropriate than non - intimate public self - disclosure . most importantly , the mean values of disclosure appropriateness were above four in all conditions , indicating that we succeeded in constructing appropriate posts . therefore , their main effects on perceived closeness and social attraction can still be tested by anova . two - way anovas were applied to examine the main effects of disclosure intimacy and narrativity on perceived closeness ( one - item closeness and propinquity ) and social attraction . for the one - item measure of closeness , the result of two - way anova revealed a significant interaction effect between the intimacy level and the narrativity level , f(1 , 131 )  =  6.69 , p  =  0.011 , p  =  0.048 . under the condition of low - narrativity , participants in the high - intimacy group ( m  =  4.14 , sd  =  1.87 ) reported a higher level of perceived closeness to the target discloser than those in the low - intimacy group ( m  =  2.50 , sd  =  1.38 ) , t ( 65 )  =  3.98 , p  <  0.001 , cohen s d  =  0.814 ; but under the condition of high - narrativity , there was not a significant difference among high - intimacy ( m  =  3.88 , sd  =  1.79 ) and low - intimacy ( m  =  3.79 , sd  =  1.79 ) groups . under the condition of low - intimacy , participants in the high - narrativity group ( m  =  3.79 , sd  =  1.79 ) reported a higher level of perceived closeness than those in the low - narrativity group ( m  =  2.50 , sd  =  1.38 ) , t ( 62 )  =  3.21 , p  =  0.001 , cohen s d  =  0.993 ; but under the condition of high - intimacy , no significant difference among high - narrativity ( m  =  4.14 , sd  =  1.87 ) and low - narrativity ( m  =  3.88 , sd  =  1.79 ) groups was found . as expected , there was a positive main effect of intimacy on closeness , f(1 , 131 )  =  8.31 , p  =  0.005 , p  =  0.059 . interestingly , when we dropped the cases in which participants perceived the target posts as inappropriate ( < 4 ) , the positive main effect of disclosure intimacy on perceived closeness was stronger , f(1 , 95 )  =  13.92 , p  <  0.001 , p  =  0.128 . these results supported h2a and h3a partially , because we did not expect an interaction effect to be significant . for the propinquity measure , the result of two - way anova yielded only a weak interaction effect , f(1 , 135 )  =  9.82 , p  =  0.043 , p  =  0.030 . the pattern was similar to the one item measure of closeness : under the condition of low - narrativity , participants in the high - intimacy group ( m  =  3.81 , sd  =  1.60 ) reported a higher level of propinquity toward the target discloser than those in the low - intimacy group ( m  =  3.03 , sd  =  1.51 ) , t ( 68 )  =  2.08 , p  =  0.021 , cohen s d  =  0.498 . but no significant group difference was found among high - intimacy ( m  =  3.62 , sd  =  1.60 ) and low - intimacy ( m  =  3.91 , sd  =  1.41 ) groups under the condition of high - narrativity . under the condition of low - intimacy , participants in the high - narrativity group ( m  =  3.91 , sd  =  1.40 ) reported a higher level of perceived closeness than those in the low - narrativity group ( m  =  3.03 , sd  =  1.51 ) , t ( 65 )  =  2.47 , p  =  0.008 , cohen s d  =  0.604 . for social attraction , the results of two - way anova showed a negative main effect of disclosure intimacy , f(1 , 135 )  =  20.29 , p  =  0.001 , p  =  0.076 . note that when we dropped the cases in which participants perceived the target posts as inappropriate ( < 4 ) , the negative main effect of disclosure intimacy on social attraction disappeared , f(1 , 98 )  =  2.74 , p  =  0.101 , p  =  0.027 . no further significant effect of narrativity was observed ; therefore h3b was also not supported . utilizing an experimental design , study 1 showed that it is possible to develop a feeling of familiarity and a relatively higher feeling of closeness toward a discloser after browsing his / her posts that were embedded in a stream of other s updates . a higher amount of self - disclosure is beneficial for creating a feeling of familiarity and closeness . the role of disclosure intimacy and narrativity were complex : for closeness , we found an interaction effect , indicating that one factor , either intimacy or narrativity , was sufficient to elicit a feeling of closeness . in addition , disclosure intimacy had a positive main effect on the one - item measure of closeness but had a negative effect on social attraction . the correlational statistics in table  4 also indicated that the correlation between the perceived appropriateness and social attraction was higher than the correlation between perceived appropriateness and closeness . however , when we dropped the cases in which participants rated the target posts as inappropriate ( < 4 ) , the positive effect of disclosure intimacy on closeness turned stronger , and the negative main effect of disclosure intimacy on social attraction disappeared . these results provided evidence for the important role of perceived appropriateness , especially when it comes to social attraction . intimate public self - disclosure is thus a double - edged sword : it may increase a feeling of closeness , but it may also decrease social attraction when it is perceived as inappropriate . however , there are some limitations : first , the sample size was not as large as we aimed for since it was difficult to get enough participants to a lab study during that time period . second , the results were not exactly the same between the two measures of closeness ( the one - item question and the propinquity scale ) . third , the interaction effects of closeness between narrative disclosure and intimate disclosure were unexpected . study 2 was an online study in order to collect a larger and more heterogeneous sample of participants . the design of study 2 , including measures and the sequence of measures , was similar to the study 1 . the reliability of scales can be found in appendix b. we were concerned that participants might be less devoted compared to the participants in a lab study . therefore , the stimuli were displayed a second time after the closeness and familiarity measures . participants can then have a second chance to look at the stimuli if they paid less attention to it the first time . based on the study 1 , we intended to recruit at least 400 participants for study 2 . we recruited participants online , including sending invitation emails to several german university email lists and posting the questionnaire links on facebook and some forums . participants who completed this online study were entered into a raffle to receive a 10 euro amazon voucher , the chance of winning was one out of each five participants . similar to the selection criteria in study 1 , participants who spent less than 30  s in reading each stimulus were dropped . this resulted in a final sample of 433 participants ( 161 males ; mage  =  25.82 years ; sd  =  6.38 years ) . table  5 depicts the descriptive results for the degrees of familiarity with five existing and five new profile owners . among 433 participants , 39 participants ( 9.0% ) reported  do not remember  when seeing the target profile owner , whereas , for each distractor s profile , at least 292 participants ( > 67.4% ) correctly recognized that this distractor was not shown before . the level of familiarity with the target discloser ( m  =  4.61 , sd  =  1.79 ) was already higher than the level of familiarity with the third discloser who posted three times ( m  =  3.84 , sd  =  1.70 ) , t(317 )  =  7.69 , p  <  0.001 , supporting h1 ( see more information in table  5 ) . these results were similar to that in study 1 , but the error rate was higher compared to study 1 , which indicates that the online study has more random noises . similar to the results in study 1 , participants in study 2 also indicated that they felt relatively closer to disclosers who disclose more frequently ( see results in table  6 ) . the target discloser who posted five times ( m  =  3.42 , sd  =  1.80 ) was perceived as emotionally closer compared to the discloser who posted three times ( m  =  3.14 , sd  =  1.61 ) , t(337 )  =  2.65 , p  =  0.004 , who was in turn perceived as emotionally closer than the two disclosers who posted less frequently . the descriptive results and correlation statistics can be found in table  3 , table  4 respectively . a two - way anova for perceived intimacy indicated a significant main effect for both manipulated level of intimacy , f(1 , 429 )  =  56.53 , p  <  0.001 , p  =  0.116 , and manipulated level of narrativity , f(1 , 429 )  =  11.89 , p  <  0.001 , p  =  0.027 , and no significant interaction effect was observed here . a two - way anova for perceived coherence showed a significant main effect of manipulated narrativity , f(1 , 429 )  =  310.61 , p  <  0.001 , p  =  0.420 , and there were no significant main effect of manipulated intimacy and interaction effect . as expected , the results of manipulation check showed that participants in the high - intimacy condition perceived the target posts as more intimate ( m  =  5.28 , sd  =  1.26 ) than that in the low - intimacy condition ( m  =  4.38 , sd  =  1.25 ) , t(431 )  =  7.36 , p  <  0.001 , cohen s d  =  0.708 ; and participants in the high - narrativity condition perceived the target posts as more coherent ( m  =  5.98 , sd  =  1.12 ) than that in the low - narrativity condition ( m  =  3.79 , sd  =  1.46 ) , t(431 )  =  17.63 , p  <  0.001 , cohen s d  =  1.687 . unfortunately , participants in the high - narrativity condition also perceived the target posts as slightly more intimate ( m  =  5.02 , sd  =  1.28 ) than participants in the low - narrativity condition ( m  =  4.62 , sd  =  1.37 ) , t(431 )  =  3.10 , p  =  0.001 , cohen s d  =  0.298 . another two - way anova showed that perceived appropriateness also differed across conditions : participants in the high - intimacy condition ( m  =  4.44 , sd  =  1.17 ) perceived the target posts as less appropriate than that in the low - intimacy condition ( m  =  4.96 , sd  =  1.16 ) , f(1 , 429 )  =  21.62 , p  <  0.001 , p  =  0.048 ; participants in the high - narrativity condition ( m  =  4.83 , sd  =  1.19 ) perceived the target posts as more appropriate than that in the low - narrativity condition ( m  =  4.55 , sd  =  1.17 ) , f(1 , 429 )  =  6.21 , p  =  0.013 , p  =  0.014 . however , values were significantly above 4 in all conditions , indicating that in general the posts were perceived as appropriate . we will nevertheless additionally run some exploratory linear regressions due to the confounded nature of the data after reporting the anova results for closeness and social attraction . for the two measures of closeness , the normality assumptions were not met , and for social attraction , the assumption of homogeneity of variance was not met . therefore , bootstrapping strategies with 5000 repetitions were used here : two - way anovas ( manipulated intimacy    manipulated narrativity ) were conducted for the three measures of closeness and social attraction . for both , the one - item measure of closeness and propinquity , however , there were marginal positive effects of manipulated narrativity on closeness [ 95% ci :  0.020.93 ; 90% ci : 0.050.86 ] and propinquity [ 95% ci :  0.010.75 ; 90% ci : 0.050.87 ] . for social attraction , the 95% confidence interval for manipulated intimacy contained zero [ 0.590.13 ] , but manipulated narrativity was above zero [ 0.080.73 ] . that means participants in the high - narrativity condition ( m  =  4.61 , sd  =  1.29 ) rated the target discloser as more socially attractive than participants in the low - narrativity condition ( m  =  4.25 , sd  =  1.32 ) , t(431 )  =  2.80 , p  =  0.003 . but the effect of manipulated narrativity on social attraction was no longer significant [ 95% ci :  0.110.56 ] after we excluded the cases in which target posts were perceived as inappropriate ( < 4 ) . in study 2 , h2b was rejected , and h3b was partially supported . because the manipulated narrativity changed the level of perceived intimacy in study 2 , it is unclear whether the narrativity effect is ( also ) due to intimacy . hence , measured values of perceived intimacy and narrativity should be used for data analysis . in addition , we later realized that the manipulation of narrativity also changed the level of perceived entertainment value ( in addition to perceived appropriateness ) . therefore , stepwise regressions were used : for each dependent variable , the perceived intimacy and coherence were first added into the linear regression model ( step 1 ) , and then the potentially confounding / mediating variables such as perceived appropriateness and entertainment value were added as predictors ( step 2 ) . the assumption of independent errors was not always met for all linear regressions ; hence we used bootstrapping strategies with 5000 repetitions and 95% confidence intervals . the results can be found in table  7 ( for study 1 ) and table  8 ( for study 2 ) . for the results of step 1 , perceived intimacy was only positively associated with the one - item closeness measure in study 1 , and perceived coherence had a positive effect on propinquity and social attraction in both studies . with regard to the results of step 2 , the adjusted rs had been increased largely . instead , the perceived appropriateness and entertainment value of target posts significantly predicted propinquity and social attraction . these results indicated that perceived entertainment value , in addition to perceived appropriateness , played an important mediating role in predicting closeness and social attraction . across two studies , participants perceived high - narrative disclosure messages as more entertaining , and the entertainment value predicted closeness ( propinquity ) and social attraction . for the effect of manipulated narrativity on propinquity , the 95% bootstrap confidence interval for the indirect effect of entertainment value , based on 5000 bootstrap samples , was [ 0.170.75 ] in study 1 , and [ 0.230.51 ] in study 2 . similarly , for effect of manipulated narrativity on social attraction , the 95% confidence interval for indirect effect was [ 0.170.64 ] in study 1 , and [ 0.220.50 ] in study 2 ( table  8) . the current studies utilized a unique design of stimuli that resembles a real - life browsing experience . it aimed to examine whether browsing social media can create a feeling of familiarity and ( even ) closeness toward strangers who publicly disclose self - information on social media . the results of study 1 and 2 consistently indicated that it is possible to develop a level of familiarity with a frequent discloser after browsing . perceived closeness to the target discloser remained relatively low , but the perceived closeness was higher compared to other disclosers who posted less self - information . more importantly , we aimed to examine the effects of disclosure intimacy and narrativity on perceived closeness and social attraction ( when the disclosure was likely to be perceived as appropriate ) . the manipulation of disclosure intimacy and narrativity worked largely in the direction of our expectation : it was perfect in study 1 ; but , in study 2 , even though we used the same stimuli , the manipulation of disclosure narrativity also slightly changed the level of perceived intimacy , and the effect size of manipulated intimacy on perceived intimacy was not as large as that in study 1 . when it comes to the role of disclosure intimacy , different from previous research ( baruh & cemalclar , 2015 ) , no negative relationships between disclosure intimacy and perceived closeness were observed in both studies . in study 1 , there was a positive effect of manipulated disclosure intimacy on perceived closeness ( the one - item measure ) , but a negative effect on social attraction . when we dropped the cases in which participants perceived the disclosure messages as inappropriate in study 1 , the positive effect of manipulated intimacy on perceived closeness turned stronger , and its negative effect on social attraction disappeared . however , no main effects of disclosure intimacy on closeness or social attraction were found in study 2 . this result indicated that , when disclosure messages are mostly appropriate , online participants are less likely , than lab participants , to be influenced by the level of disclosure intimacy . when it comes to the role of narrativity , we found a conditional positive effect on closeness in study 1 , and a significant positive effect on the social attraction in study 2 . this indicates that participants , when doing the study online , pay more attention to the overall feeling of coherence and narrativity than lab participants . in post - hoc analysis , we also found a mediating effect of perceived entertainment value : narrativity increased the entertainment value , and entertainment value turned out as an important predictor of closeness and social attraction . this is mainly due to the experiment settings : study 1 was conducted in lab , but study 2 was conducted online . lab participants tend to read the same stimuli more carefully than online participants , hence , in study 2 , the error rate of the familiarity with distractors was higher than that in study 1 and the manipulation check result of study 2 was not ideal . even with this drawback , it is practically meaningful to run the same study in online setting , as the online setting is closer to real - life sns browsing experience than the lab setting . much research has been done on the positive effects of public self - disclosure from a discloser s perspective , such as relieving loneliness ( buechel and berger , 2012 , groe deters and mehl , 2013 , lee et  al . , 2013 ) , strengthening relational closeness ( burke & kraut , 2014 ) , increasing feeling of connectedness ( grieve et  al . , 2013 , park et  al . , 2011 ) , and improving subjective well - being ( lee , lee , & kwon , 2011 ) . less attention has been paid to the effects of public self - disclosure from a receiver s perspective ( edwards et  al . , 2015 , 2015 ) , especially regarding the impression formation of the discloser in the zero - acquaintance or get - acquaintance paradigm . our research contributed to this research gap and provided a better understanding of public self - disclosure on social media and its effect on interpersonal relationships . the results of two studies contribute to the field of relationship formation on social media . prior research has mainly focused on the role of intimacy ; by examining the role of frequency , intimacy , and narrativity , we offer a more comprehensive understanding of the underlying processes . first , we showed that frequent posting on social media increases the feeling of familiarity and closeness in the zero - acquaintance paradigm . this could also explain the phenomenon of ambient awareness ( levordashka and utz , 2016 , thompson , 2008 , pp . 19 ) : merely by reading several posts that are embedded in a stream of other news , social media users can form an impression of the discloser and develop a feeling of closeness ( at least when the posts are perceived as appropriate ) . second , we examined the role of narrativity that has never been studied in this context . we found a direct or indirect positive effect ( via perceived entertainment value ) of narrativity on closeness and social attraction . it supported previous research claiming that entertaining posts on social media can bring people closer to each other ( lin et  al . , 2016 , utz , 2015 ) , and addressed the role of humor in interpersonal relationship formation ( treger , sprecher , & erber , 2013 ) . the results on the effects of disclosure frequency and intimacy also contributed to the debate of familiarity - attraction link . for private conversations , a higher amount of self - disclosure often lead to more closeness ( a. aron et  al . , 1997 ) , and created familiarity - based liking ( berger and calabrese , 1975 , zajonc , 1968 ) . recently , this basic principle has been called into question : norton et  al ( norton et  al . , 2007 ) proposed the less is more  hypothesis that , especially in initial stage of interaction , more information about a person may lead to a higher degree of perceived dissimilarity , and therefore leads to less liking . our results showed that , for a feeling of closeness , a higher amount of self - disclosure is beneficial ; this supports the classic positive effect of self - disclosure on closeness . nonetheless , intimate self - disclosure , when perceived as inappropriate , seems to be detrimental for perceived social attraction . therefore , we recommend social media users to be cautious when disclosing intimate self - information publicly on social media , but it would be nice if one can disclose self - information in a narrative way . practically speaking , frequent posting on social media is good for others to have a feeling of familiarity with oneself , but it does not necessarily lead to social attraction . especially when such public posts are perceived as inappropriate or lead to negative beliefs , posting may decrease social attraction . first , we purposefully used the design that five posts of the target discloser were embedded in a news stream of fifteen posts . we are not sure how a different number of posts in the stimuli may alter the results . for example , posts in the stimuli can pop up one after another in the experiment , to resemble the process of news updating in one s news stream . second , there were some problems with the manipulation : the result of manipulation check in study 2 was not ideal , and we doubted if the manipulation was strong enough . the manipulation checks were measured with the target posts provided on the same page , but closeness and social attraction were not . when participants paid less attention to the stimuli before manipulation check , they were less likely to be influenced by the manipulation when rating closeness and social attraction . it was not easy to disentangle and manipulate these variables in experiments , though they are distinct concepts in theory . third , there were a few problems with regard to the measures of perceived intimacy and one - item closeness . in addition , even though one - item measure of closeness was popular ( arthur aron et  al . , it was more convenient for participants to rate it multi - times for examining h1 , and we purposefully added another multi - item measure of propinquity for further examination . in summary , we examined the role of public self - disclosure on interpersonal impression formation by conducting one lab study and another online replication study . both studies indicated that a higher frequency of self - disclosure on social media is beneficial for others to create a feeling of familiarity with oneself . however , the effects of disclosure intimacy and narrativity on the feeling of closeness and social attraction are somehow influenced by other factors such as perceived appropriateness and entertainment value . on social media , it is usually good ( at least does no harm ) if one can disclose self - information in a narrative way , as it increases entertainment value ; but one has to be cautious when disclosing intimate self - information that might be perceived as inappropriate by others , which can decrease one s perceived social attraction .
on social media , users can easily share their feelings , thoughts , and experiences with the public , including people who they have no previous interaction with . 
 such information , though often embedded in a stream of others news , may influence recipients perception toward the discloser . 
 we used a special design that enables a quasi - experience of sns browsing , and examined if browsing other s posts in a news stream can create a feeling of familiarity and ( even ) closeness toward the discloser . 
 in addition , disclosure messages can vary in the degree of intimacy ( from superficial to intimate ) and narrativity ( from a random blather to a story - like narrative ) . 
 the roles of disclosure intimacy and narrativity on perceived closeness and social attraction were examined by a 2    2 experimental design . by conducting one lab study and another online replication , we consistently found that disclosure frequency , when perceived as appropriate , predicted familiarity and closeness . 
 the effects of disclosure intimacy and narrativity were not stable . 
 further exploratory analyses showed that the roles of disclosure intimacy on closeness and social attraction were constrained by the perceived appropriateness , and the effects of narrativity on closeness and social attraction were mediated by perceived entertainment value .