Unequal Privacy Online: Investigating Antecedents of SNS Users’ Behaviors of Online Protecting and Searching for Private Information

• In Event: Privacy Issues With Social Media #3

Abstract

Social networking sites have significantly changed the ways in which people exchange social information, but they have also given rise to renewed concerns about personal privacy. The purpose of this study is to investigate SNS users’ behaviors related to online protecting and searching for private information, and the antecedents will affect their behaviors. We found out there were three types of behavioral patterns—inefficient user pattern (low-protection and low-searching), conservative user pattern (high-protection and low-searching) and efficient user pattern (high-protection and high-searching).The results also showed that online information exchange was an unequal process; people who perceived more benefits of online information exchange would more likely to utilize the Internet to search for others’ information but at the same protect their own online privacy more strictly. Demographic variables like age and education also showed significant effects.

Authors

• Qian Liu, City University of Hong Kong

• Caixie Tu, City U of Hong Kong