Extent of private information disclosure on online social networks: An exploration of Facebook mobile phone users

Computers in Human Behavior 29 (2013) 2722–2729

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Computers in Human Behavior journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/comphumbeh

Extent of private information disclosure on online social networks: An exploration of Facebook mobile phone users Victoria Kisekka a,⇑, Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen b,1, H. Raghav Rao c,2 a

School of Management, State University of New York at Buffalo, 304 Alfiero Center, Buffalo, NY 14260, United States Department of Geography and the Canada United States Trade Center, State University of New York at Buffalo, 105 Wilkeson Quad, Buffalo, NY 14261, United States c School of Management, State University of New York at Buffalo, 325C Jacobs, Buffalo, NY 14260, United States b

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:

Keywords: Information disclosure Older adults Online social networks Online privacy Facebook Mobile phone users

a b s t r a c t The present study adopts the Communication Privacy Management theory and investigates the factors that influence the extent of private information disclosure of Facebook mobile phone users. Using a sample size of 488 adult mobile phone users, the study further investigates the differential impact of age on the extent of private information disclosure. Results from the logistic regressions run reveal that use of smartphones to access social networking sites, use of multiple social networks, and being female decrease the likelihood of private information disclosure. In addition, usability problems increase the likelihood of information disclosure by older adults. The analyses show no association between perceived benefit and private information disclosure. Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction The use of online social networks (OSNs) such as Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn has more than doubled since 2008. Internet usage reports have shown an increase in social networking activities (Madden, 2012), confirming earlier empirical projections for the exponential increase in internet usage (Odlyzko, 2003). This exponential increase in social networking (SN) has exacerbated cyber security threats. These threats are typically introduced when individuals share their information online. A previous survey has shown that more online users are now aware of the security risks inherent in social media use (Madden, 2012). Yet, Consumer Reports Magazine found that a number of Facebook users do not set privacy settings to limit public access to their information (Consumer Reports magazine., 2012). The type of personal information typically shared includes pictures, full names, date of birth, email address, mailing/physical address, phone numbers, sexual orientation, group affiliations, name of significant other, and sometimes family members’ names (Gross & Acquisti, 2005; Stutzman, 2006). This extent of information disclosure may lead to serious attacks such as identity theft,

⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 716 645 5256. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (V. Kisekka), [email protected] (S. Bagchi-Sen), [email protected] (H. Raghav Rao). 1 Tel.: +1 716 645 2722. 2 Tel.: +1 716 645 3425. 0747-5632/$ - see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2013.07.023

neighborhood attacks (Bin & Jian, 2008; Jagatic, Johnson, Jakobsson, & Menczer, 2007), etc. Information sharing on OSNs affords numerous benefits to users, although sharing too much information increases the likelihood of privacy and security attacks. This study aims to address the existing dichotomy between information sharing and privacy by examining the factors that influence the extent of private information disclosure (PID). We used the Communication Privacy Management (CPM) theory (Petronio & Durham, 2008) as the theoretical basis for investigating the factors that affect the extent of PID on Facebook. This study also explores the age differences in PID. There are two research questions addressed in this study: (i) What are the factors influencing the extent of PID by smartphone users who have an account on Facebook? (ii) Is there a difference in the extent of PID on Facebook between older and younger adult users? The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, we present a discussion of the prior literature in security, privacy and information disclosure in OSNs, followed by the theoretical background in Section 3. In Section 4, the research model is introduced, followed by a discussion of the data and methods in Section 5. Lastly, the results, discussion, and conclusion are presented, in Sections 6, 7, and 8, respectively. In summary, this research paper makes two significant contributions. First, it explores how social networking affects the extent of private information disclosure on Facebook. Second, it explores the differential impact of age on the extent of private information disclosure.

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2. Security, privacy and information disclosure in online social networks The following sections contain a review of previous research that investigates security, privacy and information disclosure as they relate to users’ behavior on OSNs. Additionally, we discuss work that links information disclosure on OSNs to smartphone usage and age differences.

2.1. Information disclosure and user behavior on OSNs The existence and growth of OSNs is heavily driven by information sharing. Users create content and share/distribute it to other users on the SN. Although there are other documented reasons why people use OSNs (Joinson, 2008b; Lampe & Ellison, 2006), the main reason is information sharing. It is mainly through information sharing that users become vulnerable to privacy and security risks inherent in online data sharing. For instance, information shared with friends may be used in ways that violate the privacy of the individual. The need to further understand users’ privacy on OSNs is underscored by Lampe et al. (2006)’s finding that Facebook users believe that their online profiles represent them accurately. What is more, most users surveyed thought that their information was only viewed by their peers (Lampe et al., 2006). Another worrisome finding was that the majority of users did not restrict access to their online profiles (Kolek & Saunders, 2008; Strater & Lipford, 2008). And although most users are aware of the importance of keeping their information private, on average, users find it acceptable for their friends, families, classmates, and even strangers to access their profile information (Stutzman, 2006). These findings are troublesome because privacy risks increase as one’s network of friends increases. While OSNs provide users with the ability to control their privacy, many users are either unaware of how to restrict access to their data (Govani & Pashley, 2005; Strater & Lipford, 2008) or are not concerned about the security risks (Strater & Lipford, 2008). The majority of existing work in this area has primarily focused on information revelation on OSNs and its impact to user privacy, the extent of information revelation and tactics for protecting personal information, and the impact of users’ privacy concerns (Acquisti & Gross, 2006; Stutzman, 2006; Waters & Ackerman, 2011; Young & Quan-Haase, 2009). There have also been investigations of factors responsible for users’ self-disclosure behavior on OSNs. For example, in (Krasnova, Spiekermann, Koroleva, & Hildebrand, 2010), the authors determined that users’ perceived benefits for disclosing information were enablers of self-disclosure. The benefits that were identified included maintaining relationships, deriving enjoyment from using the OSNs, creating new relationships, and self-presentation. These findings were similar to earlier observations made by (Strater & Lipford, 2008). Krasnova et al. (2010) further determined that perceived privacy risk was a barrier of information sharing. In another related study, the authors examined why children disclosed information on MySpace and found three factors to be significant: the design of the website, due to the fact that users are required to provide some personal information; peer pressure; and self-presentation (De Souza & Dick, 2009). Other researchers who have explored the factors that lead to information disclosure have found that besides privacy concerns, other factors include network effects, activity level, gender, and cultural influence (Lewis, Kaufman, & Christakis, 2008), as well as information sensitivity (McKnight, Lankton, & Tripp, 2011; Treiblmaier & Chong, 2007) and a lack of concern, despite awareness of security risks (Govani & Pashley, 2005). Elsewhere, work has been done to understand users’ behavior and privacy attitudes towards using OSNs. In (Hoadley, Xu, Lee, &

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Rosson, 2010), the authors determined that a perceived lack of information control and ease of access to personal information heightened users’ privacy concerns. The importance of online users’ privacy concerns has also been on the rise, yet research on the strategies that users employ to manage their privacy on OSNs is still lacking. We found one such study that established that the reasons for not restricting access to personal information included usability issues and a lack of awareness for how easily accessible their information was to strangers (Strater & Lipford, 2008). It is worth noting that the sample size used by Strater and Lipford (2008) was small, and as such, more research is needed to further our understanding of how users manage their privacy on OSNs. Our study aims to extend Strater and Lipford (2008)’s findings by using a large sample size to investigate whether usability affects older and younger adults’ ability to protect personal information on OSNs and whether the effect is different for these groups. 2.2. Age differences in information disclosure The fastest growing demographic on the internet today is older adults but they are the most vulnerable to privacy and security attacks. As of 2012, more than 50% of American adults age 65 and older were using the internet, and 34% of these used OSNs (Zickuhr & Mary, 2012). The diffusion of innovation theory posits that age is a predictor of innovation (Rogers, 1995). Previous studies investigating PID on OSNs only focused on younger adults (Acquisti & Gross, 2006; Gross & Acquisti, 2005; Young & Quan-Haase, 2009). However, research on aging and technology has found evidence that there is an age difference in technology use. In particular, age differences exist not only in computer usage (Cutler, Hendricks, & Guyer, 2003; Morris & Venkatesh, 2000) but also social networking behavior (Pfeil, Arjan, & Zaphiris, 2009). From a theoretical perspective, according to the diffusion of innovation theory, age is considered to be a predictor in the rate of adopting new technologies (Brancheau & Wetherbe, 1990). Research on the inherent differences in PID between older and younger adults is currently nonexistent; prior studies have only explored how older adults use OSNs (Subrahmanyam, Reich, Waechter, & Espinoza, 2008; Wilson & Nicholas, 2008), age differences of SN users (Pfeil, Arjan, & Zaphiris, 2009), and other topics relating to usage patterns and perceptions of OSNs. We found one study comparing the privacy attitudes of older and younger adults (Hoofnagle, King, Li, & Turow, 2010), however, the age group used for older adults in this study was 25 years and above which is not representative of the senior citizen population. As mentioned in the introduction, research has shown that age differences in IT usage exist, yet there is a lack of empirical studies investigating older adults’ privacy behavior on OSNs. This research seeks to fill this gap by evaluating factors that contribute to PID and whether these factors affect older and younger adults differently. 2.3. Smartphones and information disclosure Use of smartphones is becoming increasingly popular in the United States. Currently, 88% of adults in the United States currently use smartphones (Boyles, Smith, & Madden 2012) and at least 50% of these access OSNs using their smartphones (comScore., 2011). Prior studies on smartphone usage have mainly focused on the effects of smartphone usage for social networking (Park, Han, & Kaid, 2012), usability (Kaasinen, 2005; Wessels, Purvis, & Rahman, 2011), and concerns regarding smartphone usage for accessing SN (Lugano, 2008; Sadeh et al., 2009). Empirical research evaluating the association between smartphone usage and PID is missing from the field. This study further contributes to the existing literature by empirically investigating how smartphone usage affects the extent of PID.

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3. Communication privacy management on online social networks Managing of private information is challenging for OSN users and creates a dichotomy between the desire to disclose information for self-representation and the need to maintain personal privacy to stave off threats. We utilize the CPM theory to investigate the factors responsible for the extent of PID on Facebook (Afifi, 2003; Child, Pearson, & Petronio, 2009; Petronio, Caughlin, Braithwaite, & Baxter, 2006). CPM theory posits that there are benefits and risks associated with information revelation (Petronio, 2002). More specifically, by revealing private information to others, a certain degree of risk is introduced. It is because of these risks that people create boundaries to protect the information they consider private. Creating privacy rule boundaries allows individuals to balance their need for privacy with the need to disclose certain private information. CPM has generally been applied in understanding privacy boundaries within families. Earlier studies used CPM theory to explain how individuals within a family create privacy rules for disclosing information to family members and how the family as a whole manages collectively known familial information. Notable examples include (Afifi, 2003) where CPM was applied to investigate how people within stepfamilies create communication boundaries to facilitate the effective management of disclosing and concealing of information from other family members. In Serewicz et al. (2007), the theory was used to investigate the relationship between a family’s privacy rule orientation and demographic characteristics. Similarly, (Morr Serewicz & Canary, 2008) applied CPM to explain how families develop and apply rules to manage interior and exterior family privacy boundaries and how family relationships are affected as a result. There have also been demonstrations of how CPM can be applied in the healthcare arena to explore the creation of privacy boundaries by physicians as they manage to conceal and disclose information medical mishaps to family members (Petronio, 2006). Extensions of CPM to explore privacy management outside family settings have started to emerge. These include privacy in ecommerce (Metzger, 2007), online blogging (Child et al., 2009), and social networks (Waters & Ackerman, 2011). This study investigates the factors that influence the extent of users’ PID on Facebook. Two of the critical rules that govern CPM are relevant to our study. The first rule maintains that people believe they own their private information and as such, control

access to it. Based on this rule, therefore, people create boundaries to control access to their private information. In the context of social networks (in particular, Facebook), users own the information they post on their profiles and therefore have an obligation to control access to their private information. Controlling access to private information on Facebook is accomplished through several private controls that allow a user to define the extent of information visibility to other individuals. A user may choose what information to share, and with whom. For every piece of data a user posts on Facebook, the user can select a specific audience for that post. These security and privacy preferences for private data provide a mechanism by which users create boundaries to control access to their private information. According to the second rule, people create personal rules which they then use to conceal or reveal their private information (Petronio, 2002). Petronio determined that there are five factors that play a major role in the ways people develop personal privacy rules. The factors include culture, gender, motivation, context, and risk/benefit ratios (Petronio, 2002). These factors have been shown to be responsible for the differences in the way people create privacy rules in face-to-face situations. The factors we find relevant to our study of OSNs are: technology use, application usability, gender, and net benefit. In the current study, technology use is represented by smartphone usage and extent of OSN usage. The smartphone is a new IT artifact we are introducing as explained in Section 2. We define net benefit as the perceived good gained from sharing private information. 4. Research model The dependent variable of the model in this study is extent of PID. We seek to understand the factors that influence the extent of information disclosure on Facebook. The independent variables are smartphone usage, extent of OSN, application usability, perceived benefit, and gender. Education level is used as a control variable. The research model is depicted in Fig. 1. 4.1. Constructs and hypotheses Smartphone usage: Since the early 1990s, scholars have established that technology use facilitates communication and in fact, new communication tools are frequently developed to support media communication. A relatively new artifact in computer mediated communications is mobile phones, and more specifically, smartphones. The diffusion of smartphones has furthered social

Fig. 1. Research model.

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networking by enabling users to create, access, and share information, as well as to perform other SN activities instantly. Although there is a rising awareness of the security risks associated with the ease of information disclosure via smartphones, research on this topic is non-existent. Because of the complex design of most smartphones and smartphone applications, usability has been identified as a common problem faced by smartphone users. Specifically, common design features of smartphones (such as smaller screens, limited keyboard functionality, and multiple versions of websites to accommodate mobile users) have resulted in usability issues that discourage several smartphone activities such as web browsing (Tarasewich, 2003; Wessels et al., 2011). Additionally, data costs required to access the internet are also a hindrance (Wessels et al., 2011). What’s more, development of user-friendly mobile portal websites (versions of internet websites designed to support smartphone usage) has been relatively slow. Studies in human–computer interaction inform us that a highly usable system is easy to learn, use, and assists users in timely, effort-less completion of tasks (Nielsen, 2012). It is not a surprise that less complex smartphones were regarded as more efficient and effective by users in several research studies (Ziefle, 2002; Ziefle & Bay, 2005). Accordingly, we predict that the intricate design of smartphones will inhibit SN activities (such as information sharing). H1a: The use of smartphones to access social networking sites decreases the likelihood of private information disclosure. Ziefle and Bay (2005) evaluated smartphone usage between younger and older adults and found that older adults had lesser navigation abilities than younger adults (Ziefle & Bay, 2005). As such, usability issues increase the amount of effort required to share information on OSNs using smartphones. Using the diffusion of innovation theory (Rogers, 1995), Olson, O’Brien, Rogers, and Charness (2011) found significant differences in computer use between younger and older adults (Olson, O’Brien, Rogers, & Charness, 2011). Thus, it is expected that the extent of PID will be different for older and younger adults who use smartphones to access OSNs. H1b: There is a difference in the extent of private information disclosure between older and younger adults who access social networking sites using smartphones. Extent of OSN usage: Prior studies investigating the relationship between internet use and privacy concerns have established that frequent online users or users who engaged in a diverse number of online activities were less concerned about security and privacy concerns compared to users who used the internet less frequently (Metzger, 2004; Rice, 2006). Studies in OSNs have made similar discoveries; for instance in (Staddon, Huffaker, Brown, & Sedley, 2012), an analysis of survey results of Facebook users revealed that there was a strong association between low engagement in Facebook activities such as posting information, commenting, and privacy concern. Staddon et al. (2012)’s finding suggest that avid users of OSNs have a low concern of security and privacy and as a result, are more likely to share their personal information with others on the network. It is therefore expected that using several OSNs increases information disclosure. H2a: Using more than one OSN increases the likelihood of private information disclosure. Drawing from the theory of disengagement, we hypothesize that the extent of online social networking will be different for younger and older adults. Disengagement theory posits that there is a tendency of people to withdraw from society as they age (Hochschild, 1975). This theory suggests that older adults inherently have less social ties and as such, their extent of social networking may be lower compared to younger adults. This argument is supported by findings by Gibson et al. (2010), who noted that older adults were reluctant to share their information and perceived online social networking as more suitable for younger individuals. There is also a tendency for older adults to avoid engaging in activities that require social contact (Cornwell,

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2011). Other scholars have also confirmed age differences in OSN behavior (Pfeil et al., 2009; Nosko, Wood, & Molema, 2010. Thus, H2b: The extent of OSN usage will have a different effect on older and younger adults’ extent of private information disclosure. Application usability: The concept of application usability generally refers to how well a computer application supports the needs and expectations of users. It is imperative that security and privacy features on OSNs are usable to enable users protect their information as needed. Previous findings inform us that there is generally an under-utilization of privacy and security features of OSNs. This under-utilization has been attributed to usability-related issues, an underestimate of the extent of PID (Strater & Lipford, 2008), and pre-established trust of previous associations (Nagle & Singh, 2009). OSNs, and in particular, Facebook, provide several options for managing user privacy. However, unless users are able to change the privacy and security options to the desired setting, they may unknowingly expose their private information to the public. Therefore, we expect the following: H3a: An increase in the level of difficulty to manage privacy controls increases the likelihood of private information disclosure. There have been acknowledgements in the literature about usability issues and the existence of physical inabilities that inhibit older individuals from using mobile technologies (Kurniawan, Mahmud, & Nugroho, 2006; Siek, Rogers, & Connelly, 2005). There is also a difference in the design requirements of smartphones between younger and older individuals (Osman, Maguire, & Tarkiainen, 2003). For these reasons, the complexity of managing privacy controls will inhibit older adults from safeguarding their personal information on Facebook. This leads us to the following expectation H3b: The level of difficulty in managing privacy controls has a different effect on older and younger adults’ extent of private information disclosure. Perceived benefit: OSN services depend on active participation from users. User participation on OSNs is not mandated, nevertheless, users choose to share their information voluntarily with the expectation of certain benefits. Consistent with this view, Donath and Boyd (2004) showed that perceived benefits of sharing information on OSNs outweigh the costs. As such, we predict that users with a high perceived benefit of sharing information are more likely to reveal their private information, as compared to users with a low perceived benefit of information sharing. We thus propose as follows. H4: The likelihood of private information disclosure is higher for individuals with a high perceived benefit of information sharing. Gender: Gender differences have long been studied through the lens of social role theory (Eagly, Wood, & Diekman, 2000). Existing research on gender differences in SN has mostly focused on analyzing gender distribution and SN habits (Mazman & Usluel, 2011; Muscanell & Guadagno, 2012) while neglecting the PID component. A few exceptional studies in the area of online privacy found notable results. The relevant specific findings were that female users are on average more concerned about online privacy (Acquisti & Gross, 2006) and generally reveal less information online than males (Caruso & Salaway, 2008; Gross & Acquisti, 2005; Nosko et al., 2012). In another survey, it was discovered that female users generally engaged in fewer internet activities compared to male users (Wei, 2012). Based on these findings, we expect the following. H5: The likelihood of private information disclosure is higher for males than females.

5. Methods 5.1. Sample In this paper, we analyzed survey data collected by Pew Internet & American Life Project between April 26, 2011 and May 22, 2011

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(Pew Internet & American Life Project, 2011). The dataset entitled ‘‘May 2011 – Mobile’’ consisted of a nationally representative sample of 2277 mobile phone users. Participants were male and female, aged 18 years and older. The survey included questions on mobile phone usage and profile management on OSNs. This research paper only focuses on mobile phone users who indicated that they had an account on Facebook. The remaining sample size after eliminating missing values using pairwise exclusion was 448 cases, 100 of which were older adults aged 55 years and above, and 348 were younger adults aged 54 years and below. Out of the 448 individuals, 170 were male and 278 were female. 5.2. Measures 5.2.1. Extent of PID This is a nominal variable that was captured by asking survey respondents whether their Facebook profiles were set to public, partially private, and private. All responses for this variable were either partially private, or private. This variable is therefore dichotomous where a value of 1 represents private and 0 represents partially private. Cases where users refused to respond to the question or did not know their privacy settings were eliminated from the analysis. 5.2.2. Smartphone usage Smartphone usage is a dichotomous variable that captured whether survey respondents used smartphones to access OSNs. A value of 1 represents use of smartphone for OSNs and 0 represents nonuse of smartphones for OSNs. Cases where users indicated that their smartphones did not have the capability to access OSN or did not know whether their smartphones could be used to access OSN were eliminated from the analysis.

5.2.7. Education level (education) Education level is a measure of respondents’ highest grade completed in school. The possible values for this variable range from 1 (none or grades 1–8) to 7 (post graduate training/professional school after college). Education level is used as a control variable in our model. 5.3. Method We used logistic regression analysis using statistics software SPSS version 20 to investigate the factors influencing the extent of PID on Facebook. The logistic regression model used to estimate the parameters was as follows:

Extent of PID ¼ a þ b1 Smartphone þ b2 Extent of OSN þ b3 Usability þ b4 Benefit þ b5 Gender þ b6 Education

ð1Þ

Where: Smartphone represents usage of smartphones to access OSNs. Extent of OSN is the extent of OSN usage. Usability is application usability. Benefit is perceived benefit. Gender (where 1 = male and 0 = female). Education is the highest grade completed. 6. Results Results from the logistic regression run for the entire sample revealed that application usability and perceived benefit were not statistically significant see Table 1.

Predicted logit of extent of PID ¼ 1:131 þ ð1:104Þ Mob þ ð1:052Þ Extent of OSN

5.2.3. Extent of OSN usage (extent of OSN) This variable captured the number of OSNs used by an individual. The possible values for this variable were 1, 2, 3, and 4. The data was right skewed showing that the majority of individuals used either 1 or 2 OSNs. As such, this variable was dichotomized into two values: 1 and 0, where 1 represents use of only one OSN and 0 represents use of more than one OSN. Cases where the response to this variable was ‘‘Don’t Know’’ were eliminated from the analysis.

þ ð:229Þ Usability þ ð:043Þ Benefit þ ð:886Þ Gender þ ð:202Þ Education

Table 1 Summary of results from the logistic regression analysis. Predictor Entire sample Smartphone usage Extent of OSN Usability Benefit Gender Education Constant Model Chi-Square (d.f. = 6) Older adults Smartphone Usage Extent of OSN Usability Benefit Education Constant Model Chi-Square (d.f.= 6) Younger adults Smartphone Usage Extent of OSN Usability Benefit Education Constant Model Chi-Square (d.f. = 6)

5.2.4. Application usability (usability) Application usability captured users’ level of difficulty to manage privacy controls on their profiles. The possible values for application usability range in decreasing level of difficulty from 1 to 4 where 1 indicates a high level of difficulty in managing privacy controls and 4 indicates that management of privacy controls was not difficult. 5.2.5. Perceived benefit (benefit) Survey participants were asked to respond to seven questions about why they used OSNs. For each question, subjects had to state whether it was a major reason (1), minor reason (2), or not a reason (3) for using Facebook. The seven questions about why respondents used OSNs have been converted into a single scale variable called perceived benefit by summing up the value. As a result the higher the summed value, the higher the perceived benefit of using Facebook. 5.2.6. Gender Gender is a dichotomous variable where 1 indicates that the individual is male and 0 indicates that the individual is female.

ð2Þ

⁄⁄

p < .01. p < .05. *** p < .001. *

b

SE b

Wald’s x2

Exp(B)

1.104*** 1.052*** .229 .043 .886*** .202* 1.131*** 46.743

.270 .288 .152 .108 .247 .086

16.729 13.340 2.276 .163 12.823 5.518

3.015 2.862 1.257 1.044 .412 .817

2.250* .308 .843* .07 .559* 1.099*** 26.825

.906 .635 .351 .242 .256

6.164 .236 5.762 .083 4.779

9.492 1.361 2.323 .933 .571

1.135*** 1.321*** .130 .086 .154 1.379*** 30.586

.319 .343 .179 .123 .096

12.650 14.798 .525 .486 2.567

3.112 3.747 1.139 1.089 .858

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We conducted a follow-up analysis to compare whether the two groups, older and younger adults, were statistically different. This analysis involved calculating the difference between the betas for each variable. With the exception of application usability, there was no statistically significant difference between groups for all other variables at p < .05. As shown in Table 1, a logistic regression run for each specific group shows that application usability was a significant factor of PID for older adults but not younger adults at p < .05. 6.1. Smartphone usage Hypothesis 1a predicted that the use of smartphones to access OSNs decreased the likelihood of PID. This hypothesis was supported at p < .05. The results showed that survey respondents who used smartphones to access OSNs were less likely to reveal private information on Facebook compared to those who did not. In particular, the odds of PID on Facebook are three times lower for individuals who use smartphones to access OSNs. We did not find any difference in smartphone usage between older and younger adults. Hypothesis 1b was therefore not supported. 6.2. Extent of OSN usage Hypothesis 2a proposed that PID was higher for individuals who used more than one OSN. Although the results for this hypothesis were supported at p < .05, the relationship was quite the opposite. That is, PID on Facebook is approximately 3 times less for individuals who use more than one OSN. There was no statistical difference in the extent of OSN usage between older and younger adults. Hypothesis 2b was therefore not supported. 6.3. Application usability In Hypothesis 3a, we predicted that an increase in the level of difficulty to manage privacy controls increased the likelihood of PID. Hypothesis 3a was not supported. Hypothesis 3b was supported at p < .05. The results revealed that application usability affected older and younger adults differently. For older adults, as the level of difficulty in managing privacy controls increased, the likelihood of PID went up as well. 6.4. Perceived benefit Hypotheses 4a and 4b were not supported. Perceived benefit of information sharing did not affect the odds of PID on Facebook. Our results confirm previous conclusions by (McKnight et al., 2011), who found no association between perceived benefit and information disclosure. 6.5. Gender Lastly, in Hypothesis 5, we proposed that likelihood of PID was higher for males, and this was supported at p < .05. In other words, the likelihood of PID is significantly higher for males compared to females. 7. Discussion In the present study, we used CPM theory to investigate PID by adults who use the social networking site Facebook. Using logistic regression, we examined the factors that influence the extent of PID by older adults (aged 55 and over) and by younger adults (aged 18–54). The results show that use of smartphones to access OSNs increases the likelihood of keeping information private on

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Facebook. This finding suggests that mobile users are not only concerned about mobile applications that share information, as determined by Boyles, Smith, and Madden (2012), but also take measures to safeguard their information on Facebook. This is a significant contribution because this is the first research to find an association between smartphone usage and online privacy behavior. It has been previously determined that usability issues inhibit users’ ability to protect their information online (Strater & Lipford, 2008). Our contribution to this literature is that usability affects older and younger adults’ extent of PID differently. We found that for older adults, usability significantly affected their ability to keep personal information private on Facebook. Older adults who experienced no difficulty in managing the privacy settings of their Facebook profiles are likely to keep their information private. This finding underscores the need to make security and privacy controls easy to use, configure, and manage, in order to avoid accidental sharing of confidential information. For extent of OSN, the results were inconsistent with our hypothesis, showing that individuals who use only Facebook for social networking have higher odds of PID compared to individuals who have profiles on other OSNs. This may in part be due to the claim that multi-tasking negatively affects performance (Buser & Peter, 2012). This implies that managing two or more SN profiles impedes users from optimally participating on any one specific SN consequently reducing the extent of PID. In the case of perceived benefit, our analyses showed that perceived benefit was not a factor in PID. This conclusion is consistent to prior findings in McKnight et al. (2011). Finally, the results supported our prediction about gender differences in information revelation behavior. This finding confirmed earlier results reported in (Joinson, 2008a; Lewis et al., 2008), which found that females were more likely to make their Facebook profiles private compared to men. We theorized that factors affecting PID on Facebook would affect older and younger mobile users differently. The results showed that this is not true, with the exception of application usability. Our finding of no statistical difference between older and younger mobile users for all but one variable underscores Olson, O’Brien, Rogers, and Charness (2011)’s conclusion that the use of technology by older and younger users is similar, even though the frequency of usage may be different in certain cases.

8. Conclusion This research investigated the factors that influence the extent of private information disclosure on Facebook. We found that the likelihood of PID was less for three groups of users: females; users who use smartphones to access their accounts; and users with more than one active SN account. Another significant finding was that usability affected older and younger adult users differently. Ultimately, the results presented in this paper provide a basis for both researchers and social network designers/developers to address the usability of security and privacy features on OSNs. Unless system usability is improved, efforts towards establishing cybersecurity measures will continue to be hindered by users’ inability to manage security and privacy controls. What is more, SN is fast becoming ubiquitous and an increasing number of users are using more than one OSN. Our analyses showed that an increase in social networking involvement does not increase the likelihood of PID. Because information sharing increases the rate at which malware and cyber attacks spread, and with personal privacy and national security concerns at an all-time high, more research is needed to increase our understanding of the psychology of SN users. For examples, more studies are needed to better understand the SN culture better and why it is that users choose to share more confidential information when using only one OSN. It is noteworthy that

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awareness of security and privacy threats does not dissuade users from revealing information (Govani & Pashley, 2005). However, understanding the social psychology of OSN users would be a good starting point towards reducing current and future obstacles to cybersecurity. There is also a need for laws and policies to regulate the design of easy, user-friendly OSNs. A limitation of this study is due to the assumptions in CPM that individuals own their private information and are expected to manage the privacy of that information. This assumption introduces a limitation because of the lack of a clear definition of what constitutes information ownership. As pointed out in (Petronio, 2010), perceived ownership of information may affect the way people manage their privacy on social networks. This limitation underscores the need for government policies to regulate privacy and the use of sensitive information shared on OSNs. Acknowledgements This research has been funded by the National Science Foundation under grant 0916612. The usual disclaimer applies. References Acquisti, A., & Gross, R. (2006). Imagined Communities: Awareness, Information Sharing, and Privacy on the Facebook. In Privacy enhancing technologies (pp. 36– 58): Springer Berlin/Heidelberg. Afifi, T. D. (2003). ‘Feeling caught’in stepfamilies: Managing boundary turbulence through appropriate communication privacy rules. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 20(6), 729–755. Bin, Z., & Jian, P. (2008). Preserving Privacy in Social Networks Against Neighborhood Attacks. Paper presented at the Data Engineering, 2008. ICDE 2008. IEEE 24th International Conference on [7–12 April 2008]. Boyles, L. J., Smith, A., & Madden, M. (2012). Privacy and Data Management on Mobile Devices. [Retrieved 23.11.12]. Brancheau, J. C., & Wetherbe, J. C. (1990). The adoption of spreadsheet software: Testing innovation diffusion theory in the context of end-user computing. Information Systems Research, 1(2), 115–143. http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/ isre.1.2.115. Buser, T., & Peter, N. (2012). Multitasking. Experimental Economics, 15(4), 641–655. Caruso, J. B., & Salaway, G. (2008). The ECAR study of undergraduate students and information technology, 2007-Key Findings. [Retrieved 25.11.2012]. Child, J. T., Pearson, J. C., & Petronio, S. (2009). Blogging, communication, and privacy management: Development of the blogging privacy management measure. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 60(10), 2079–2094. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/asi.21122. comScore. (2011). Social Networking On-The-Go: US Mobile Social Media Audience Grows 37 Percent in the Past Year. [Retrieved 23.11.12]. Consumer Reports Magazine. (2012). Facebook & your privacy. [Retrieved 26.11.2012]. Cornwell, B. (2011). Age trends in daily social contact patterns. Research on Aging, 33(5), 598–631. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0164027511409442. Cutler, S. J., Hendricks, J., & Guyer, A. (2003). Age differences in home computer availability and use. The Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 58(5), S271–S280. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/geronb/ 58.5.S271. De Souza, Z., & Dick, G. N. (2009). Disclosure of information by children in social networking—Not just a case of ‘‘you show me yours and I’ll show you mine’’. International Journal of Information Management, 29(4), 255–261. http:// dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2009.03.006. Donath, J., & Boyd, D. (2004). Public displays of connection. BT technology Journal, 22(4), 71–82. Eagly, A. H., Wood, W., & Diekman, A. B. (2000). Social role theory of sex differences and similarities: A current appraisal. The developmental social psychology of gender, (pp. 123–174). Govani, T., & Pashley, H. (2005). Student awareness of the privacy implications when using Facebook. unpublished paper presented at the ‘‘Privacy Poster Fair’’ at the Carnegie Mellon University School of Library and Information Science. [Retrieved 29.08.12] Gibson, L., Moncur, W., Forbes, P., Arnott, J., Martin, C., & Bhachu, A. S. (2010). Designing social networking sites for older adults. In Proceedings of the 24th BCS Interaction Specialist Group Conference, (pp. 186-194). British Computer Society. Gross, R., & Acquisti, A. (2005). Information revelation and privacy in online social networks. Paper presented at the Proceedings of the 2005 ACM workshop on Privacy in the electronic society, Alexandria, VA, USA.

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