The Privacy Paradox in Contemporary Social Media Research Paper

Introduction

In the contemporary technology-driven digital world, the Internet has become the most frequently used platform for communications. The rapid advancement of social media websites and mobile applications, such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and others, has triggered new human interpersonal communication patterns and self-identification. The opportunities to share multiple photos, videos, comments, opinions, and life attitudes encourage social media users to disclose themselves to the public more. At the same time, they express a heightened level of concern about the respect of their private data by the institutions that launch websites.

Such a paradoxical relationship between social media attitudes toward privacy issues and their disclosing behavior is called a privacy paradox. The planned research focuses on identifying whether functioning in the social media environment is bound to self-disclosure and private information sharing. It will be argued that since there exists a high level of ambiguity concerning the definition of online social media as either private or public space, users tend to confuse privacy for functionality.

The omnipresence of online communication validates the relevance of the topic concerning privacy on social media. Millions of people of all ages and cultural backgrounds use social media daily, sharing information through self-disclosing content posted online (Gruzd & Hernandez-Garcia, 2018).

The risks of the adverse social and psychological consequences of the privacy paradox imply necessitate an in-depth investigation of the problem to understand the mechanisms behind the paradox better and design functional solutions for privacy protection. Online space is causing a shift in human perception of what is private and public, causing a complex restructuring of behavioral norms. Therefore, the study’s importance is justified by the relevance of the issue to the general public for enhancing the privacy risks awareness, as well as to institutional decision-makers whose attention should be drawn to the issue for searching for effective solutions.

The present research proposal paper is designed to overview the privacy paradox in social media to collect theoretical data and empirical implications in the existing scholarly literature. An issue’s history, societal impact, and influential factors are provided for context; an extensive literature review is presented to examine the theories and evidence pertaining to the investigation of the problem. Finally, the application of the examined literature review findings to the planned research study is discussed.

The proposed research scope will include the psychologically and socially driven reasons for online social media users’ increased level of self-disclosure despite privacy violation risks. For the literature review, academic journals, and books published within the past five years are located and examined. Theoretical explanation and empirical evidence supporting the theories are used as a foundation for informed decision-making concerning the planned research study’s design and scope.

Issue: The Privacy Paradox in the Social Media Context

History Behind the Issue

With the advancement of the Internet and technologies that promote online activity, privacy protection concerns have elevated. The emergence of the Internet-of-things and the related principles of interaction between consumers, businesses, and the general public functioning online introduced new perspectives on protecting private information and the level of acceptable self-disclosure (Williams et al., 2016).

In the early 2000-s, research studies have been initiated to investigate the scope of influence of personal information disclosure in association with online shopping (Kokolakis, 2017). Initially, the privacy paradox concept has been (and continues to be) researched within a general context of the Internet as a whole. However, much attention is being paid to the particularities of social media platforms pertaining to self-disclosure and online security.

Within the context of social media, the information about the activity of users online can be stored, processed, and used for advertising or other purposes. According to Barth and De Jong (2017), “the information being transformed between electronic devices equates to a form of unwitting user observation” (p. 1039). Since the storage of information is a widespread concern, people express disturbance related to their personal data. However, “even when users report a high level of concern about online privacy, they still do not take … measures to protect their privacy online” (Xie et al., 2019, p. 742). Such a phenomenon has been labeled the privacy paradox and has been significantly researched by scholars in online technologies, psychology, sociology, cybersecurity, and other spheres.

Impact on Society

Although online privacy has been well addressed and acknowledged by the general public, little is being done to mitigate the risks of self-disclosure through social media platforms. Indeed, as researchers report, multiple consequences account for risks associated with the lack of personal data security. These consequences include “identity theft, stalking, online harassment,” excessive exposure to e-commerce, subjecting to third party intrusion, and other threats (Chen, 2018; Kokolakis, 2017; Xie et al., 2019, p. 742). Therefore, there is a significant impact of the issue on society through the endangering of citizens’ privacy protection and threatening their well-being and autonomy. It is essential to deepen the research efforts in the field of the privacy paradox investigation to examine the underlying principles, contributing factors, and possible solution options.

Critical Factors Impacting the Privacy Paradox Issue

The dichotomy of the issues related to privacy is due to contextual overlapping and risk management decision-making. Since social media platforms are designed according to particular patterns that imply increased personal information sharing stored and processed online, the likelihood of users to breach privacy is externally influenced. Moreover, “the needs for impression management and relationship maintenance compel users to reveal extensive amounts of personal data and account for the discrepancy between privacy concern and actual privacy protection behaviors” (Pentina et al., 2016, p. 409). Indeed, people agree to trade-offs related to privacy to enhance their functionality within the context of the rules applicable to social media interactions.

There are several approaches to discussing critical factors that contribute to the emergence of the privacy paradox. The opportunities for organizations to obtain private data from users are influenced by four factors “collection, unauthorized secondary use, improper access, and errors in personal information” (Gruzd & Hernandez-Garcia, 2018, p. 419). Similarly, five groups of factors apply to the issue, each relating to a particular domain of behaviors and decision-making patterns of the involved parties. They include “education and experience, usability and design, privacy risk salience, social norms, and policies and configurations” (Williams et al., 2016, p. 645). Thus, the problem’s complexity is derived from the heterogeneity of the factors that comprise the privacy paradox as a phenomenon.

Possible Solutions to be Explored

Given the scope of the problem’s impact on society and the broad spectrum of factors, there are several potential solutions to the problem. Firstly, socio-technical measures might be initiated to increase the level of private information protection; technological initiatives and policies for privacy values respect are proposed (Williams et al., 2016). However, since the scope of the proposed research is limited to social and psychological behavioral patterns, it might be of more significance to examine the opportunities for raising awareness about the privacy paradox and initiating promoting campaigns for cultivating a qualitatively new approach toward social media use. In addition, the factors of website and application user design are of particular influence on the likelihood of users disclosing sensitive information (Kokolakis, 2017; Williams et al., 2016). Therefore, solutions within the framework of redesigning and customizing designs of the interface according to users’ preferences might be relevant.

Literature Review

Theories, Constructs, and Concepts

In the scholarly literature on the topic of online privacy, the phenomenon of the privacy paradox has been approached using various theories and conceptual frameworks. Indeed, Barth and De Long (2017) conducted a systematic review and located 35 theories that explored the “discrepancy between the expressed concern and the actual behavior of users” (p. 1038). The theories that have been used to investigate the issues related to the privacy paradox range from those based on the rationality of decision-making to unconscious privacy sharing and cognitive and behavioral implications of self-disclosure.

Hoffmann et al. (2016), Kim and Kim (2020), Pentina et al. (2016), and Wu (2019) explore the reasons for the paradox by applying the privacy calculus theory. This theory justifies the rational decision-making behind risking the disclosure of private information in exchange for the benefits of using social media. Indeed, as stated by Wu (2017), people decide to disclose sensitive information about themselves by “weighing the anticipated benefits of the decision against its perceived privacy consequences” (p. 211). Thus, rational thinking and informed decision-making are perceived as default features when explaining the privacy paradox using the privacy calculus theory.

There are other theories that refer to rational thinking and risk awareness concerning online security. Xie et al. (2019) explain the issue with the help of the rational fatalism theory, which is based on similar assumptions as the privacy calculus theory. Indeed, according to the rational fatalism theory, “rational people may take more risks when the danger inherent in those risks becomes unavoidable” (Xie et al., 2019, p. 742).

Indeed, several studies claim that people are more likely to express concern about privacy issues in institutional privacy violation (Kikilakis, 2017; Williams et al., 2016). Another theory applied to explaining the paradox is the social exchange theory which asserts that personal information is an object of exchange between the parties involved in social interaction (Wu, 2017). This assumption is inherently present in the social representation theory, which claims that “social representations are values, ideas or practices that enable individuals to orient and master the social world” (Barth & De Long. 2017, p. 1055). In such a manner, private information exchange substitutes the perceived functionality in online communication through social media.

The concepts or theoretical constructs were defined with great precision and a thorough explanation of their application to the issue. The relevance of the privacy calculus theory is justified by the scholarly attention to the rationality of decision-making related to online behaviors. However, the social exchange and social representation theories validate the societal interaction element that is pivotal in online communication investigation. Thus, the reviewed theories and concepts are relevant to the issue under investigation.

Empirical Literature

Numerous empirical studies, both quantitative and qualitative, have been conducted to investigate the reasons, mechanics, and possible solutions to the privacy paradox. For example, heterogeneous focus groups were initiated by Hoffmann et al. (2016). The study found that privacy cynicism as a manifestation of the privacy paradox has been primarily associated with the themes of insecurity and uncertainty, powerlessness to control data use, mistrust toward institutions, and resignation (Hoffmann et al., 2016). Online surveys have been conducted by Gruzd and Hernandez-Garcia (2018), Kim and Kim (2020), Pentina et al. (2016), and Wu (2017).

These studies investigated the manifestations and reasons for the occurrence of the privacy paradox in populations of different ages and compared them with culturally different contexts for pattern identification. Also, secondary data retrieved from previously conducted national surveys were used for empirical studies (Xie et al., 2018). Thus, the methodology that is primarily used involves participant observation and interrogation. This is validated by the social constructs applicable to the topic at hand.

The theoretical frameworks used by the researchers in the presented studies were justified. The concept of rational fatalism was found to be relevant to self-disclosure decision-making (Xie et al., 2018). Moreover, demographic characteristics, personal beliefs concerning the value of privacy, and the boundaries of the private space have been particularly illustrative concerning the level of self-disclosure online (Gruzd & Hernandez-Garcia, 2018; Wu, 2017). The studies’ common limitations were related to the selection of only one country for the investigation and the subjectivity of the perception of privacy as a concept.

Implications for the Proposed Research Study

Based on the reviewed literature on the topic of privacy paradox, the proposed research study will address the socio-psychological issue of inter-personal communication, which has not been sufficiently addressed. Little has been detected concerning the perception of acceptable functionality within the context of social media as a technological representation of society. Therefore, the proposed study will concentrate on the investigation of the necessity of personal information exchange as an immediate attribute of successful participation in online communication.

Since the social exchange theory has been widely used and explored in-depth, it is important to apply a different theory to meet the goals of the proposed study. Therefore, the social exchange theory is particularly relevant to the investigation of the issue of the privacy paradox since it integrates both psychological and social implications of communication via social media platforms (Barth & De Long, 2017; Wu, 2017). Thus, this theoretical approach allows for investigating human behavior within the contextual private space vs. public space dichotomy and investigating the functionality issue.

The method that best suits the goals of the study is a combination of an online survey and participant observation through the perspective of their social media accounts. Survey questions will be designed to identify participants” attitudes toward online privacy, their practices for reinforcing privacy, and their perception of functional participation in online communication using social media. In parallel, participants’ accounts on several social media platforms will be observed and analyzed for the presence of self-disclosing content. The observation findings will be compared with the results of the survey to detect consistency.

Conclusion

The privacy paradox is a discrepancy between people’s privacy concerns and self-disclosure expressed online. From a social and psychological perspective, the privacy paradox impacts people by imposing ambiguity on behavioral patterns as social. The popularity and frequency of social media usage expand gradually, with people spending more time communicating through such platforms as Instagram, Facebook, and others.

Decision-making behind the privacy paradox has been vastly investigated; however, the implications of functionality within the digital society utilizing private information sharing have been under-investigated. Therefore, the proposed research study is aimed to research how social media users perceive and express online self-disclosure as an immediate attribute of successful communication.

References

Barth, S., & De Jong, M. D. (2017). The privacy paradox – investigating discrepancies between expressed privacy concerns and actual online behavior – a systematic literature review. Telematics and Informatics, 34(7), 1038-1058.

Chen, H. T. (2018). Revisiting the privacy paradox on social media with an extended privacy calculus model: The effect of privacy concerns, privacy self-efficacy, and social capital on privacy management. American Behavioral Scientist, 62(10), 1392-1412.

Gruzd, A., & Hernandez-Garcia, A. (2018). Privacy concerns and self-disclosure in private and public uses of social media. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 21(7), 418-428.

Hoffmann, C. P., Lutz, C., & Ranzini, G. (2016). Privacy cynicism: A new approach to the privacy paradox. Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace, 10(4), 1-18.

Kim, B., & Kim, D. (2020). Understanding the key antecedents of users’ disclosing behaviors on social networking sites: The privacy paradox. Sustainability, 12(12), 1-16.

Kokolakis, S. (2017). Privacy attitudes and privacy behavior: A review of current research on the privacy paradox phenomenon. Computers & Security, 64, 122-134.

Pentina, I., Zhang, L., Bata, H., & Chen, Y. (2016). Exploring privacy paradox in information-sensitive mobile app adoption: A cross-cultural comparison. Computers in Human Behavior, 65, 409-419.

Williams, M., Nurse, J. R., & Creese, S. (2016). The perfect storm: The privacy paradox and the Internet-of-Things. In 2016 11th International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security (ARES) (pp. 644-652). IEEE.

Wu, P. F. (2019). The privacy paradox in the context of online social networking: A self‐identity perspective. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 70(3), 207-217.

Xie, W., Fowler-Dawson, A., & Tvauri, A. (2019). Revealing the relationship between rational fatalism and the online privacy paradox. Behaviour & Information Technology, 38(7), 742-759.