The social world is inherently uncertain. Research suggests that we employ Bayesian inference to manage this. However, this work consistently overlooks how online environments (e.g., social media) modulate the social uncertainty we experience.
Researchers need to scrutinise the implications of this shift, as the online social environment, like social media, differs fundamentally from its offline counterpart. One prominent and underexplored difference is the systematic change to social uncertainty in online relative to offline environments. For example, many social media platforms enable asynchronous communication – messages can be easily viewed without an immediate response from the receiver.
Here, we suggest that online environments, like social media, modulate the uncertainty of incoming social information about important things like social status and what others’ are thinking and feeling, with downstream consequences for our beliefs and decisions.
The full paper can be read here: Social uncertainty in the digital world