Privacy attitudes and concerns in the digital lives of older adults: Westin's privacy attitude typology revisited
RRunning head: PRIVACY ATTITUDES AND CONCERNS IN THE DIGITAL LIVES OF OLDER ADULTS 1 Privacy attitudes and concerns in the digital lives of older adults: Westin’s privacy attitude typology revisited Isioma Elueze, Anabel Quan-Haase Western University January 15, 2018 Citation: Elueze, I., & Quan-Haase, A. (2018). Privacy attitudes and concerns in the digital lives of older adults: Westin’s privacy attitude typology revisited. Retrieved from https://arxiv.org/submit/2132669/view
RIVACY ATTITUDES AND CONCERNS IN THE DIGITAL LIVES OF OLDER ADULTS 2 Abstract There is a growing literature on teenage and young adult users’ attitudes toward and concerns about online privacy, yet little is known about older adults and their unique experiences. As older adults join the digital world in growing numbers, we need to gain a better understanding of how they experience and navigate online privacy. This paper fills this research gap by examining 40 in-depth interviews with older adults (65+) living in East York, Toronto. We found Westin’s typology to be a useful starting point for understanding privacy attitudes and concerns in this demographic. We expand Westin’s typology and distinguish five categories: fundamentalist, intense pragmatist, relaxed pragmatist, marginally concerned, and cynical expert. We find that older adults are not a homogenous group composed of privacy fundamentalists; rather, there is considerable variability in terms of their privacy attitudes, with only 13% being fundamentalists. We also identify a group of cynical experts who believe that online privacy breaches are inevitable. A large majority of older adults are marginally concerned, as they see their online participation as limited and harmless. Older adults were also grouped as either intense or relaxed pragmatists. We find that some privacy concerns are shared by older adults across several categories, the most common being spam, unauthorized access to personal information, and information misuse. We discuss theoretical implications based on the findings for our understanding of privacy in the context of older adults’ digital lives and discuss implications for offering training appropriate for enhancing privacy literacy in this age group.
Keywords : Older adults, Seniors, Online privacy, Privacy concerns, Privacy attitudes, Social media, Internet. RIVACY ATTITUDES AND CONCERNS IN THE DIGITAL LIVES OF OLDER ADULTS 3 Privacy attitudes and concerns in the digital lives of older adults: Westin’s privacy attitude typology revisited Privacy is acknowledged as a basic human need and, as such, is an important policy and research topic (Bartsch & Dienlin, 2016; Kezer, Sevi, Cemalcilar, & Baruh, 2016; Walrave, Vanwesenbeeck, & Heirman, 2012). Much of the literature on privacy and digital media has examined the privacy concerns of young users (Acquisti & Gross, 2006), the types of information they disclose (Livingstone, Ólafsson, & Staksrud, 2011), and the kinds of strategies they employ to protect their privacy (Young & Quan-Haase, 2013). A key difference between older adults and younger users is that privacy concerns can be a real barrier to older adults participating online and expanding their media repertoire (Yuan, Hussain, Hales, & Cotten, 2016), whereas for younger users the evidence suggests that this is not the case (Jiang, et al., 2016). Younger adults have consistently been shown to rely on digital media despite having numerous privacy concerns (Acquisti & Gross, 2006), a phenomenon described as the privacy paradox or dilemma (Barnes, 2006; Kokolakis, 2017; Young & Quan-Haase, 2013). Media portrayals of privacy breaches, hacking, and cyberattacks create a sense in older adults that the use of digital media is risky. These privacy concerns in turn can make older adults reluctant to adopt digital media. For instance, Olphert, Damodaran, and May (2005) found that privacy concerns were a central barrier to older adults’ uptake of the internet. They reported that a high proportion of older adults expressed privacy concerns, which in turn reduced their overall time spent online and hindered non-users’ adoption of the internet. Similarly, Ferreira, Sayago, and Blat (2017) found that privacy was a major barrier for older adults in Brazil taking up digital media, suggesting that feeling in control of their privacy when online could potentially increase digital media uptake among older Brazilians. Adding to their reluctance to adopt is the fact that RIVACY ATTITUDES AND CONCERNS IN THE DIGITAL LIVES OF OLDER ADULTS 4 older adults often perceive their own digital literacy as low in comparison to younger generations (Schreurs, Quan-Haase, & Martin, 2017) and therefore feel unequipped to use these technologies safely or assess risks appropriately. Despite these many concerns, older adults are adopting not only traditional digital media such as email, but also more interactive types including Facebook and Skype, even if to a lesser extent (Anderson & Perrin, 2017). While some older adults may be willing to interact on social media, their understanding of the affordances of these sites is limited (Quan-Haase, Williams, Kicevski, Elueze, & Wellman, 2018). The conundrum, of course, is that since older adults do not have as much expertise posting and interacting on social media and adjusting their privacy settings, they may be at a greater risk. Considering the attention Westin’s typology of privacy attitudes has received in prior literature, we employ his theoretical framework to inform the present study in the context of older adults. Using Westin’s typology also facilitates making comparisons across studies that are based on different samples and different age ranges. Through an examination of 40 interviews with older adults (65+), we test and expand Westin’s much-debated typology. We propose a revised typology that distinguishes five categories: fundamentalist, intense pragmatist, relaxed pragmatist, marginally concerned, and cynical expert. In addition, we investigate what kinds of privacy concerns older adults in each category have. The significance is to provide public policy insights into this social group, demonstrating the value of support through privacy literacy training and coupling adoption of digital media with risk mitigation strategies.
RIVACY ATTITUDES AND CONCERNS IN THE DIGITAL LIVES OF OLDER ADULTS 5
Literature Review
Much recent scholarly research has focused on privacy and how notions of privacy continue to evolve as a result of widespread adoption of digital media (Tsai et al., 2016; Tufekci, 2007). Dhir, Torsheim, Pallesen, and Andreassen (2017) suggest that young adults understand online privacy better because of their heavy reliance on digital media. Courtney (2008) found that the meaning of privacy varied widely among older adults (65 years and older) and included a desire to be alone, to control the information shared with others, to control access to one’s personal property, and to protect oneself from identity theft. As a greater proportion of older adults go online (Anderson & Perrin, 2017), understanding this group’s attitudes and concerns can help reduce anxiety and provide better privacy literacy.
Theoretical framework: Westin’s typology of privacy attitudes and older adults
We build on Westin’s theoretical framework to better understand the privacy attitudes and concerns of older adults. In addition to analyzing more than 120 privacy surveys held in the Privacy & American Business survey library, Alan Westin supervised about 45 national privacy surveys between 1979 and 2001 in the US (Bracy, 2013). Using results from these surveys, Westin categorized respondents into fundamentalist, pragmatist, and unconcerned (Kumaraguru & Cranor, 2005). Data were gathered from randomly selected members of the US population, and the classification is based on responses to a Likert-type scale. Although there were variations in the focus of the numerous surveys (e.g., consumer privacy, health information privacy, and e-commerce) as well as in the proportion of participants belonging to each privacy category, Westin’s description of the tripartite categories remained stable. RIVACY ATTITUDES AND CONCERNS IN THE DIGITAL LIVES OF OLDER ADULTS 6 Westin described each category in terms of differing privacy attitudes (see Table 1). Privacy fundamentalists are suspicious about anything that they perceive as a threat to their privacy and are unwilling to disclose their personal information. Pragmatists weigh the risks of giving out personal information against the potential rewards. Finally, unconcerned individuals are comfortable with sharing their information with organizations, believing that the information is generally safe. Westin’s “privacy on and off the Internet” survey (Kumaraguru & Cranor, 2005; Westin, 2000) found that among adult Americans, 25% could be categorized as fundamentalists, 55% as pragmatists, and 20% as unconcerned. In sum, Westin’s (2000) work provided a typology of online users and demonstrated individual differences in privacy attitudes. In the present study, Westin’s typology informed the coding process and provided a baseline with which to compare the study findings.