Philipp K. Masur

Do People Know About Privacy and Data Protection Strategies? Towards the “Online Privacy Literacy Scale” (OPLIS)

Empirical research has revealed disparities of internet users’ online privacy attitudes and online privacy behaviors. Although users express concerns about disclosing personal data in the internet, they share personal and sometimes intimate details of their and others lives in various online environments. This may possibly be explained by the knowledge gap hypothesis which states that people are concerned about their privacy and would like to behave accordingly, but that lacking privacy literacy prevents them from reacting the ways that they think would most adequately reflect their attitudes and needs. To implement privacy literacy in future research and policy making, a comprehensive scale to measure privacy literacy will be suggested. The online privacy literacy scale (OPLIS) was developed based on an exhaustive review of prior literature on privacy literacy and a profound content analysis of different sources capturing a variety of aspects relevant to online privacy. The scale encompasses five dimensions of online privacy literacy: (1) Knowledge about practices of organizations, institutions and online service providers; (2) Knowledge about technical aspects of online privacy and data protection; (3) Knowledge about laws and legal aspects of online data protection in Germany; (4) Knowledge about European directives on privacy and data protection; and (5) Knowledge about user strategies for individual privacy regulation.

Disclosure Management on Social Network Sites: Individual Privacy Perceptions and User-Directed Privacy Strategies

The social web and specifically social network sites (SNS) have offered new opportunities for interaction and communication, but have also increased the risk of privacy violations. In this study, we investigated how far users imply different disclosure management strategies in status updates and chat conversations. We hypothesized that users perceive specific information as differently private depending on their personal privacy preference, but generally show the same disclosure management pattern: the higher the perceived privacy level of an information, the less frequently it will be shared. We tested the hypothesis using an online survey with 316 German SNS users. The findings suggest that respondents engaged in disclosure management taking both communication channel and type of information into account. We further found that trust toward SNS contacts and use of privacy settings significantly influenced disclosure management in one-to-many (status updates) but not in one-to-one communications situations (chat conversations). The results complement existing research by showing the pivotal role of individual privacy perceptions in explaining users’ privacy management in the social web.

Online-Privatheitskompetenz und deren Bedeutung für demokratische Gesellschaften

Hersteller setzen beim Design von Informationsund Kommunikationstechnologien bewusst auf intuitive Bedienbarkeit und eine klare Nutzerorientierung: Das Auffinden von Informationen wird mithilfe von Google kinderleicht, das Kommunizieren über Smartphone-Anwendungen unkompliziert und das Einkaufen über Online-Shoppingportale schnell und bequem. Dabei werden jedoch auch personenbezogene Daten gespeichert, analysiert und wirtschaftlich verwertet – allesamt Datensammlungspraktiken, die für die Nutzerinnen und Nutzer selten greifbar sind und die zu kaum wahrnehmbaren, nichtsdestominder aber signifikanten Verletzungen der informationellen Privatheit führen. Die Verbreitung von sozialen Medien, Online-Einkaufsportalen sowie Smartphones ist dabei nur der Anfang einer beispiellosen Entwicklung hin zu einer nahezu umfassenden Digitalisierung. Schon heute drängen vernetzte Autos, SmartTVs und Wearables immer weiter in bisher private Offline-Kontexte vor und auch hier wird die Quantifizierung von Nutzerverhalten urbar gemacht. Neben der indirekten Vermessung unseres Verhaltens und der Auswertung anfallender Metadaten, geben Menschen in vielen Fällen jedoch auch direkt und freiwillig Informationen über sich preis. Unzählige Firmen und Institutionen nutzen die kombinierten Daten für elaborierte Kundenprofile und hochentwickelte Analyseverfahren. Vor diesem Hintergrund verläuft der aktuelle Diskurs zum Schutz der Privatheit vorranging im Sinne eines liberalen Freiheitsverständnisses (Seubert 2016). Demnach wird der Schutz der Privatheit verstanden als individueller Schutz gegenüber Eingriffen durch Dritte (Mitmenschen, wirtschaftliche oder staatliche Akteure). Diese isolierte Perspektive vernachlässigt Online-Privatheitskompetenz und deren Bedeutung für demokratische Gesellschaften

Privacy in Mediated and Nonmediated Interpersonal Communication: How Subjective Concepts and Situational Perceptions Influence Behaviors

New communication media such as social networking sites (SNSs) and instant messengers (IMs) challenge users’ privacy perceptions. Technical infrastructures and the flow of digital information lead to novel privacy risks that individuals are often not acquainted with. Users’ subjective perceptions of privacy may thus be flawed and lead to irrational behavior. In this work, we investigated a concept that has been addressed only implicitly in academic research on privacy: the user’s subjective perception of a given level of privacy. We examined the literature on how privacy perceptions have been conceptualized in traditional theories of privacy and how these conceptualizations are challenged in social media communication. We first qualitatively explored laypeople’s privacy concepts and investigated their subjective perceptions of privacy levels and subsequent private disclosures in different mediated and nonmediated communication settings. Interviews with N = 33 Germans revealed that, similar to academic privacy theories, they tend to conceptualize privacy as control over social, physical, and psychological boundaries. However, trust and other-dependent privacy emerged as important novel aspects for understanding privacy regulation in online communication. We further found that individuals consistently perceived a high level of privacy in face-to-face situations and a low level of privacy in public communication on SNSs. With regard to IMs, however, their answers were mixed: Uncertainty regarding digital communication properties and audiences as well as limited control over the communication setting prevented a reliable and shared perception of the privacy level. With regard to privacy behavior and private disclosures, we found that people tend to adapt their sharing of private information to the perceived level of privacy.

Mutual friends’ social support and self-disclosure in face-to-face and instant messenger communication

ABSTRACT In the present study, we investigated long-term effects of self-disclosure on social support in face-to-face and instant messenger (IM) communication between mutual friends. Using a representative sample of 583 German IM users, we explored whether self-disclosure and positive experiences with regard to social support would dynamically interact in the form of a reinforcing spiral across three measurement occasions. If mutual friends self-disclose today, will they receive more social support 6 months later? In turn, will this affect their willingness to self-disclose another 6 months later? We further analyzed spill-over effects from face-to-face to IM communication and vice versa. We found that self-disclosure predicted social support and vice versa in IM communication, but not in face-to-face communication. In light of these results, the impact of IM communication on how individuals maneuver friendships through the interplay between self-disclosure and social support are discussed.

Mindful Instant Messaging

The number of smartphone users surpassed two billion in 2016; the most popular applications are instant messengers. However, research about benefits and risks for users has yielded contradictory findings and indicates that the relation between smartphone use and well-being depends on many conditions. We propose mindfulness as a predictor of well-being related to instant messaging. In our study, 211 participants answered short questionnaires on the evenings of five consecutive days. Multilevel analyses showed that a mindful use of instant messaging was positively related to users’ well-being, as indicated by more positive affect and less stress related to instant messaging. Moreover, the relation between day-specific mindfulness and well-being was statistically mediated by a more autonomous motivation to use instant messengers.