IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/spr/sprchp/978-3-658-09918-3_5.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

Privacy Protecting Behavior in Social Network Sites

In: Factors Driving Social Network Site Usage

Author

Listed:
  • Claus-Peter H. Ernst

Abstract

The use of Social Network Sites (SNSs) poses risks to the privacy of members: for example, the members’ information could be used for unwelcome commercial purposes or they could become the target of personal attacks. Risks generally lead to Protecting Behavior. However, it is still unknown which specific Protecting Behavior results from Perceived Privacy Risk in SNSs. Based on a study of the literature, we identified six potential Privacy Protecting Behaviors that SNS members could use. Drawing from the Protection Motivation Theory, we argue that not only does SNS members’ Perceived Privacy Risk (Threat Appraisal) influence the implementation of specific Privacy Protecting Behaviors; their evaluation of the potential Privacy Protecting Behaviors themselves (Coping Appraisal) influences it as well. After surveying 50 German-speaking Facebook users and applying a structural equation modeling approach, we confirmed a positive influence of Perceived Privacy Risk on Refusal, Selectivity in Connections, and Strictness of Privacy Settings. In contrast, we were not able to confirm an influence of Perceived Privacy Risk on Misrepresentation, Removal, and Termination of Connections. However, this confirmed our hypotheses that Perceived Privacy Risk has a greater influence on Refusal than on Misrepresentation and Removal, and that it has greater influence on Selectivity in Connections than on Termination of Connections.

Suggested Citation

  • Claus-Peter H. Ernst, 2015. "Privacy Protecting Behavior in Social Network Sites," Springer Books, in: Factors Driving Social Network Site Usage, edition 127, pages 57-81, Springer.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-658-09918-3_5
    DOI: 10.1007/978-3-658-09918-3_5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-658-09918-3_5. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.