Research Note—Privacy Concerns and Privacy-Protective Behavior in Synchronous Online Social Interactions

Abstract

P rivacy is of prime importance to many individuals when they attempt to develop online social relationships.Nonetheless, it has been observed that individuals' behavior is at times inconsistent with their privacy concerns, e.g., they disclose substantial private information in synchronous online social interactions, even though they are aware of the risks involved. Drawing on the hyperpersonal framework and the privacy calculus perspective, this paper elucidates the interesting roles of privacy concerns and social rewards in synchronous online social interactions by examining the causes and the behavioral strategies that individuals utilize to protect their privacy. An empirical study involving 251 respondents was conducted in online chat rooms. Our results indicate that individuals utilize both self-disclosure and misrepresentation to protect their privacy and that social rewards help explain why individuals may not behave in accordance with their privacy concerns. In addition, we find that perceived anonymity of others and perceived intrusiveness affect both privacy concerns and social rewards. Our findings also suggest that higher perceived anonymity of self decreases individuals' privacy concerns, and higher perceived media richness increases social rewards. Generally, this study contributes to the information systems literature by integrating the hyperpersonal framework and the privacy calculus perspective to identify antecedents of privacy trade-off and predict individuals' behavior in synchronous online social interactions.

Integrating the Expanded Task-technology Fit Theory and the Technology Acceptance Model: A Multi-wave Empirical Analysis

“…When submitting a resume or interviewing for a position, job seekers must not only choose what information to include but also what information to exclude. When companies threaten privacy with requests for social media logins, job applicants can provision information in two ways (Jiang, Heng, & Choi, 2013): they can refuse to disclose their social media login credentials or they can misrepresent their social media activity.…”

Noise or Quality? Cross-Nested Hierarchical Effects of Culture on Online Ratings

“…Although Eliasoph and Lichterman (2003) made this conclusion in relation to offline groups, a wealth of existing literature supports the idea that online groups interacting in virtual environments behave similarly to offline groups (Jiang, Heng, & Choi, 2013). For instance, Yee, Bailenson, Urbanek, Chang, and Merget (2007) conclude that social interactions in online environments are governed by similar norms and interaction patterns as those in the physical world even though the mode of interaction differs.…”

“…Triandis (1994) made this observation in relation to offline cultures, but the social dynamics in online collectives and groups have become increasingly similar to offline interactions (Jiang et al, 2013;Yee et al, 2007). Prior virtual community and computer-mediated communication research has demonstrated that online discussion forums have social norms that are expected to be followed and not following them may result in flaming and stronger in-group identification (Kayany, 1998;Kim, 2011).…”

The effects of general privacy concerns and transactional privacy concerns on Facebook apps usage

“…Yet most of these studies have focused on investigating the general impact of privacy concerns on self-disclosure behaviours. While exceptional studies have recently attempted to identify factors pertinent to privacy concerns in the online environment (e.g., Jiang et al 2013), rarely has research focused on identifying the privacyrelated technical attributes in social media. Our study is meaningful in that it examines two key technical attributes of Facebook App that challenges privacy boundaries.…”

“…This paper has two objectives. First, past Information System (IS) research has substantially advanced our understanding of information privacy (e.g., Bélanger and Crossler 2011;Jiang et al 2013;Smith et al 2011). While IS literature has explored several aspects of information privacy, its primary focus has been on issues triggered by personal information collection (e.g., Malhotra et al 2004;Son and Kim 2008).…”