This article analyses the self-disclosure of the Romanian members of social network sites, namely Facebook and HI5. The initial assumption was that the users of social network sites perform certain daily activities (such as making friends) at the intersection of the online and offline lives.
The first objective of the article was identifying the similarities between the multitude of actions and the motivations that lie at the basis of the user's self-disclosure for the members of two social network sites: Facebook and HI5.
The second objective of the article was aimed at delimiting the differentiation points regarding the appreciations and the motivations of the two social network sites users’ online behavior.
On the basis of the information provided by a specific age group – teenagers and young people – we can say that our results points to the fact that, for the young Romanian users of social network sites, the answer to the question ‘Why should I register on a social network?’ could be summed up the following way ‘I register on a social network site because all my friends already have an account there’.
Social networks, Virtual communities, The on-line presentation of self
