Close to you: How location cue affects responses to self-disclosures on social media

In 2022, the Chinese government implemented a policy requiring social media platforms to display approximate user location (province/municipality in China or country if abroad) on their posts, thus making location a visible cue. How does this cue affect readers’ perceptions of the source and content of the post? To investigate this, we conducted a four-condition (user location: Beijing vs. Guizhou vs. the United States vs. no location) between-subjects online experiment (N = 240) that examined how the displayed location of a social media user influenced viewers’ psychological responses to online self-disclosure messages. We also tested for two psychological mediators: perceived homophily and perceived spatial distance. We found that the displayed location of the poster (i.e., the individual who makes the social media post) affected readers’ perceived homophily and in turn their responses (empathy, source liking, perceived social distance) to support-seeking self-disclosure messages on social media. Theoretical and policy implications are discussed.