The Effects of Social Structure Overlap and Profile Extensiveness on Online Social Connectivity Regulation

In online social networks, new social connectivity is established when a requestee accepts a friend request from an unfamiliar requestor. While users are generally willing to establish online social connectivity, they are at times reluctant in constructing profile connections with unfamiliar others. Drawing on the interpersonal cognition literature and the privacy calculus perspective, this paper examines the effects of social structure overlap and profile extensiveness on privacy risks as well as social capital gains and how the requestee responds to a friend request (i.e., intention to accept). The results of a quasi-experiment involving 101 respondents provide strong evidence that social structure overlap and profile extensiveness influence privacy risks and social capital gains. In addition, while privacy risks reduce intention to accept, social capital gains increase intention to accept online social connectivity