Recommended Citation
Samuel Hardman Taylor, Jevan Alexander Hutson, & Tyler Richard Alicea, Social Consequences of Grindr Use: Extending the Internet-Enhanced Self-Disclosure Hypothesis, Proc. of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Comput. Sys., 6645 (2017)
Social Consequences of Grindr Use: Extending the Internet-Enhanced Self-Disclosure Hypothesis
Keywords
Grindr, self-disclosure, sexting, loneliness, internalized homophobia
Document Type
Article
Abstract
Grindr, a location-based real-time dating application, provides sexual-minority men (SMM) a space through which they can identify, access, and communicate with one another. Although previous research has examined user motivations and public self-disclosure patterns on Grindr, we investigate the effects intimate self-disclosure and sexting via the application’s private messaging on internalized homophobia and loneliness. Using the Internet-enhanced self-disclosure hypothesis (ISDH) as a framework, we conducted an online survey of 274 Grindr users. Serial mediation analysis showed support for the ISDH, suggesting that Grindr use was negatively associated with loneliness. Intimate self-disclosure and internalized homophobia mediated the relationship between Grindr use and loneliness, but sexting had no relationship with internalized homophobia or loneliness. We discuss implications for the ISDH, Grindr, self-disclosure, and sexting.