An Empirical Investigation of Privacy Awareness and Concerns on Social Networking Sites

Privacy affects every user who exchanges information over the Internet. In the past few years, the growth of information on social networks (such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn) has increased exponentially. Companies are harvesting this information with and without the knowledge of individuals. While the exchange of information and seamless interaction between individuals and groups has become an easy task, issues related to this exchange, such as information privacy and security, have created new challenges. This study investigated respondents' attitudes towards privacy on social networking sites. In addition, the study sought to ascertain whether socio-demographic variables and knowledge of privacy issues influence attitudes and privacy concerns towards using social computing sites. Data analysis includes descriptive profile analysis, and statistical validation of attitudes and privacy concerns by means of correlation, regression, and cluster analysis. There was a significant relationship between privacy awareness and knowledge based on information provided by respondents. Most socio-demographic variables did not show significant effects on information privacy concerns. Implications of the findings are discussed. Further research is needed to investigate individual concerns on specific information that is being collected, stored, and shared on popular social networking sites.