What are the factors which force users to share their information on social network site like Facebook?

Presented by: Muhammad Zeeshan Ashraf (1021109)

What are the factors which force users to share their information on social network site like Facebook?

Introduction
Facebook is the latest revolution in social network community these days. With 350 million family members the posting on Facebook is 35 million each day. Over 2.5 billion pictures are updated every month. As of 2011, Pakistan is the 25th highest ranking member of the network with 5,888,580 users. Facebook is the third highest searched term on the search engine google.com. Facebook has evolved into an essential part of university life in Pakistan. With this spread of the technology of connectivity comes the threat to personal privacy. Many privacy watched groups advice the users of Facebook not to reveal personal information to the people not too well known. Risks to personal privacy involve cyber stalking, harassment and spamming. (Regan, 2003) considers the feeling of privacy and security in cyber world as an illusion. The most common feature of all social network sited is the facility to have a personal profile that allow the user to save their personal information and share it with people of similar interests. Other most common features are the sharing of videos, photos, status updates and comments on said features. In order to facilitate users requirement of information security, privacy tools will be introduced. These tools provide users, different options/ levels of privacy that they can manage according to their requirements and psychological attributes. Users attitude towards privacy determines the volume and kind of material uploaded and the number of friends with which this is being shared (Acquisti & Gross, 2006). The most challenging dilemma faced by the administrators of these social network sites is maintaining the balance between privacy concerns of the users and free flow of information. Efficient handling of privacy issues by the administrators can mitigate the privacy concern of the users. In this study we are exploring the factors mediating the information disclosure behavior of the user on Facebook. Many studies previously conducted on Facebook suggest that the privacy policy of the site and the personal attitude towards sharing defines online

information disclosure and privacy attitude (Ahern, 2007, Cranor, 2000, fogei & Nehmad, 2009). We consider the psychological condition of the user towards socialization as being introvert or extrovert and the resulting effect of this on online behavior of the user. Adopting a careful attitude towards privacy can ensure our active role in online community without generating any privacy related issues (Iriberri & Leroy, 2009). Policy makers and developers must incorporate privacy attitudes and disclosure behavior of users to ensure that the user has necessary autonomy while defining the privacy settings regarding their online profile and personal information. With the massive growth of Facebook users in Pakistan this study will prove to be an important baseline for future research from different, more connected standpoints. In this research we will explore if the Pakistani user understands the concept of privacy, if the user reads the privacy statement and understands it. This study will also explore understanding of threats towards privacy and the reasons due to which the user shares his or her personal information on facebook that can be misused.

Literature Review
The internet is a global system which has quickly become everybodys favorite instrument. More and more people nowadays turn to the internet in order to obtain information, to communicate with people and to use it as an entertainment medium. As the variety of topics and activities one can find on-line is so vast, it attracts users from different ages and interests. (Meltini & Paraskevi, 2009). Control over information is important for the management of privacy. In this regard notes that an individual needs to have some degree of control with respect to three elements: choice, consent, and correction. A person needs some control in choosing situations that offer others the level of access the person desires, which can range from total privacy to total publicity. For him, the consent process relates to a persons right to restrict others from access to specific kinds of personal information; correction relates to the ability of an individual to have access to information about oneself and to correct it if necessary (Ulrike, 2011). SNSs constitute a rapidly growing phenomenon, with sites such as MySpace and Facebook attracting 250,000-300,000 new members on a daily basis (Dunne & Margaret, 2010).

Understanding privacy outcomes

Whenever a person is intended to share information on social network sites, it is the bounded regulation theory that indentifies the importance of individual knowledge. Almost every administrator of the social network site has the privacy statement (Bonneau and Preibusch, (2009)a statement regarding the usage and protection about the usage of information providedis the basic medium through which the consumer may understand what is going to be happened when they disclose the information. Some user may feel the privacy statement is a lengthy and time consuming activity to read it all (McDonald & Cranor, 2009; McDonald, Reeder, Kelley & Cranor, 2009). It is the probability that if a particular website has a privacy statement then it is tend to be share more information on the site by the users (Cranor et al., 2000). But in this study, researcher primarily focus on the act of being informed (that is reading the privacy policy). Researchers try to explore the potential mediating effect that cause increase in awareness of a sites privacy policy has on the relationship between privacy attitude and privacy behaviors.

Identify privacy behavior

Many of the social network sites provide its users to customize their privacy concerns. Facebook also provides the facility to customize the individuals concern like friend list group, item level access control, block lists and many other tools to satisfy the users need of privacy. All of these tools play a vital role while sharing the information on Facebook and provides the deterministic rule to the user that govern where the content is being used or replicate. One of the most recent study shows that there is an increase in the using the privacy settings from default (Stutzman & Kramer, 2010). Here, researcher would like to note that these tools and techniques which handle the privacy concerns is not purely deterministic function of technical tools. With the help of Mental and Technical strategies users can get control over his/her disclosure behavior (Lampinen, Tamminen and Oulasvirta, 2009). Their analysis revealed interplay between the technical methods of disclosure control (such as the utilization of privacy settings) and additional factors that influence privacy settings. In this study, researchers mainly focus on the technical strategies of privacy management and also

acknowledge the range of strategies available to individual users of Facebook. One other dimension that researchers focus on is the psychological aspects of human behavior while sharing the personal content on Facebook.

Modeling privacy in social network sites

Relationship among the privacy attitude and disclosure behavior is the complex one in its nature and some time it is also stated that these 2 doesnt match both in the context of experimental as well as in the field studies (Acquisti & Grossklags, 2004). In the computerhuman behavior, privacy is contextual and contingent information practices (Dourish & Anderson, 2006). Our study is the situated analysis, focusing on the specific population behavior. A comprehensive range of variables will be introduced to cover the relationship between privacy attitude and disclosure practices. Personal sharing in social network site is the variable (Adamic, 2003) which is the indicator of self similarity in the friendship connection. This study answered to the privacy settings and privacy policies in the social network sites. Network composition is another thing and it may exert influence on the relationship of the privacy attitude and disclosure behavior. The findings of this study may be readily applied by the administrator of the social network sites.

Methods
Participants and data collection

Participants will be recruited widely from the three cities of Pakistan through face to face data collection. Snowball sampling technique is being used in the research. Researcher restricted the sample to undergraduate and graduate students that use Facebook. Survey contained several questions including data about the demographics, privacy attitudes and Facebook sharing information of the users. Data collection will lasted for 3 weeks during SeptemberOctober (2013). Total 300 questionnaires will be distributed to the undergraduate and graduate students. Respondent ranged in age from 15-35 years of age.

Measures
Researchers indicate the 4 main measures upon which the whole questionnaire is based and these measures are privacy attitude, privacy behavior, privacy policy consumption and disclosure practices. All of these measures are being used in the analysis of the research paper. These variables each comprehensively described below. Privacy attitude In our study privacy attitude is the independent measure and it is measure by the summed scale that ask respondent to indicate their level of concern about potential privacy risks, identity theft, information leakage, hackers, blackmail and cyber stalking, while sharing the personal information on Facebook. The response category will be categories as very concerned, somewhat concerned, its ok, least concerned and not concerned. All of these items are rooted in the general review of literature on privacy threats (Grimmelmann, 2009). European Network and information security Agency report security issues reported about the recommendations of the privacy concerns in security issues and recommendations for online social networks (Hobgen, 2007).

Privacy Behavior In our study we used privacy behavior as a control measure and in this will asked 2 questions from the respondents and also about the privacy settings on Facebook. First question would be if the user has changed his privacy settings from default and second question would be if he had customized each individual friends are allowed to see their personal information like status uploads & their walls photos e.t.c. Responses of these two questions will be dicutomised as Yes or No. First question will linked with privacy personalization and second question will linked with customization of the privacy. Privacy policy Consumption Many previous researches revealed that time commitment associated with the reading privacy policy (McDonalds & Cranor, 2009). Question regarding policy consumption will be asked in order to measure respondents awareness of privacy policy and the extent to which it is being read by the respondents. The question will asked respondent to rank the awareness of policy on the scale i.e. I have read most or all, I have scanned, I know (it exist), never read it and I didnt know it exists . This will provides us with clear understanding of users concern regarding the privacy policy of Facebook. First option on the scale represents that the user has read major portion of the policy. Second option signifies that the user has had a birds eye view of the po licy. Next two options symbolize that the user has never read the policy in any way but is aware of the existence of the policy. Last option pertains to the users unawareness of the existence of the policy. Disclosure Behavior In our study we will further expand the disclosure behavior into identification and contact information that a user post on Facebook profile. This is also our dependent variable in our study. Disclosure behavior has been subdivided into two categories i.e. identity based disclosure and furthering contact disclosure. First is defined by real name and date of birth, the second one is defined by address, phone number and email ID. Both these categories are affected by privacy attitude. Through a series of

dichotomous questions we will inquired about the personal information user has shared on Facebook.

Hypothesis
H1: Boundary regulation theory has previously identified attitude of a person in

making of disclosure behavior of a person to be very important (Petronio, 2002). Hence, our first hypothesis is that users who have greater concern for regarding privacy will disclose less information on Facebook. I.e. a negative relationship. This is also our initial test of baseline association between privacy attitude and disclosure behavior. H2: In Facebook the users who actively use privacy tools show a pattern of higher

concern for privacy. We here hypothesize that the users who have a higher concern for privacy are more likely to engage in privacy protecting behavior. This establishes a positive relationship between privacy attitude and privacy behavior. Privacy protecting behavior means that the user is changing or customizing the privacy settings of Facebook. H3: Boundary regulation theory emphasizes on the background familiarity about the

disclosure atmosphere (Nissenbaum, 2010). We hypothesize that the users who have greater concern for the privacy are more likely to read privacy policy. Results into a positive relationship. H4: Facebooks privacy policy has been criticized for being lengthy, confusing and

aggressive. Therefore, we hypothesize that the users who read privacy policy are likely to disclose less information on Facebook. Establishes a negative relationship. H5: Petronio (2002) also states that if a user is given freedom to control and

manage his privacy options, the user may feel it secure to disclose more information. We hypothesize that users, who modify and personalize their privacy settings are more likely to disclose more information (positive relationship). H6: Hypothesis 6 validates the measures predicted by Hypothesis H4 & H5. This

validation will be achieved by testing if privacy behavior and policy consumption make the relationship between privacy attitude and disclosure behavior non-significant.

Limitations
There are a number of important limitations of the study. Most of our respondents are universities & college students, this can affect the generalization of the results of this study as far as the whole society is concerned. Our study investigates only one social network site i.e. Facebook. This clearly limits the applicability of our results of this site only. Other sites may have different attributes resulting in different results. Last but not the least, limitation of this study is the cross sectional data therefore it is not possible to have clear and solid claims about the results of this study.

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