To Revisit but Not Repost, Hide but Not Edit

Abstract

This exploratory quantitative descriptive research looks at personal archiving on Facebook. Our survey of college student Facebook users shows that they consider Facebook as a personal archive where they are likely to revisit old posts but are unlikely to repost them. Further, users are likely to hide old posts but are unlikely to edit them. In addition, while previous literature point out gender differences in social media activity, our study found no significant differences in personal archiving practices on Facebook between users who self-identify as female and those who self-identify as male, except for females being more likely to hide old posts than males. We postulate that these personal archiving practices are related to impression management and that hiding posts, in particular, is both an act of defense and defiance.