The mediator role of self-disclosure and moderator roles of gender and social anxiety in the relationship between Chinese adolescents’ online communication and their real-world social relationships

Based on theory and previous research, we examined relationships among gender, social anxiety, self-disclosure, quality of real-world friendships and online communication by Chinese adolescent Internet users. Results indicated that online communication and self-disclosure are not related to quality of friendship, and online communication is positively related to self-disclosure. For adolescent boys and adolescents with high social anxiety, online communication can explain more variance in users’ self-disclosure, indicating that gender and social anxiety moderate the relationship between online communication and online self-disclosure.

► We examined the predictive effect of online communication on self-disclosure.
► We examined if gender and social anxiety affect this predictive effect.
► Gender moderates the relationship between online communication and self-disclosure.
► Anxiety moderates online communication’s predictive effect on self-disclosure.