Most users of this feature report fewer privacy concerns and perceive greater enjoyment when using Snapchat ( Morlok et al., 2017 Choi and Sung, 2018). For instance, on Snapchat Stories and Instagram Stories, users’ posted content disappears after 24h. As such, it is becoming increasingly common for social media platforms to allow users to make their posted content ephemeral using relevant settings ( Xu et al., 2016 Chen and Cheung, 2019). However, this feature may also create challenges for users when past posts are inconsistent with their current self-presentation ( Schoenebeck et al., 2016 Huang et al., 2020). Most social media platforms keep past posts online indefinitely to help users with their long-term self-presentation and interactions with others ( Zhao et al., 2013 Özkul and Humphreys, 2015). Our work contributes to the understanding of ephemerality settings on social media platforms and provides insights that help practitioners design more effective platforms. Our findings show that users using the Time Limit setting who scored higher on measures of life changes, self-monitoring, posting frequency, and audience size and lower on perceived stress were more likely to opt for the low (i.e., 6months) rather than the medium (i.e., 1month) or high (i.e., 3days) degree of ephemerality. We also examine how personal and social characteristics vary between user groups with different degrees of ephemerality (i.e., low, medium, or high). Compared with nonusers, users using Time Limit setting scored significantly higher on posting frequency and privacy setting use and scored significantly lower on audience size. This study examines the Time Limit setting on WeChat Moments as an example and investigates how users using the Time Limit setting differ from nonusers in terms of personal characteristics (demographics, personality traits, psychological factors, and previous behavioral patterns) and social characteristics (audience size and audience diversity). Despite the growing popularity of this feature, few studies have empirically explored it. Many individuals apply these settings to manage their posting history and, in turn, reduce concerns about self-presentation. Social media platforms increasingly give users the option of ephemerality through settings that delete or hide posted content after a set period of time. 3School of Business Administration, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, Chengdu, China.2The Collaborative Innovation Centre of the Innovation and Regulation of Internet-Based Finance, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, Chengdu, China.1School of Economic Information and Engineering, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, Chengdu, China.Yun Zhang 1,2, Hongyan Wang 3 *, Chuan Luo 1 and Siyu Chen 1
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