Tell me more: Longitudinal relationships between online self-disclosure, co-rumination, and psychological well-being

Abstract

Online self-disclosure is a key ingredient of social media. Although disclosure practices may strengthen close relationships, revealing emotional problems might also intensify co-rumination. Co-rumination refers to excessive interpersonal dwelling about negative feelings that might bear harmful consequences on psychological well-being. To disentangle the relationships between these constructs, emerging adults (16–21 years) completed a two-wave panel survey that included measures of online self-disclosure, co-rumination, loneliness, and self-esteem. Based on a measurement invariant structural equation model, findings suggest that only informational self-disclosure, but not emotional self-disclosure, positively predicts co-rumination over time. However, co-rumination positively predicts both informational and emotional self-disclosure suggesting that social encouragement matters for disclosing online. Unexpectedly, co-rumination has no association with loneliness or self-esteem over time. Thus, we find no longitudinal evidence for psychologically negative consequences of co-ruminative interactions, suggesting that online self-disclosure and co-rumination may be less harmful than previously thought.