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The Circles of Latitude: Adoption and Usage of Location Tracking in Online Social Networking

This paper reports preliminary results of an ongoing ethnographic study of people’s attitudes towards and adoption of Google Latitude, a location-tracking technology for mobile devices. In order to understand barriers to adoption, participants include both users and non-users of Latitude, and those whose usage has dropped off. The report focuses on how participants perceive Latitude to be conceptually situated within the ecology of social networking and communication technologies. Earlier work on user attitudes with regard to location tracking emphasized potential privacy concerns. In our research we also identified privacy concerns, but additionally several other more salient tensions such as adoption trends, social conformance, audience management, and information filtering.

What a tangled web we weave: lying backfires in location-sharing social media

Prior research shows that a root cause of many privacy concerns in location-sharing social media is peoples desire to preserve offline relationship boundaries. Other literature recognizes lying as an everyday phenomenon that preserves such relationship boundaries by facilitating smooth social interactions. Combining these strands of research, one might hypothesize that people with a predisposition to lie would generally have lower privacy concerns since lying is a means to preserve relationship boundaries. We tested this hypothesis using structural equation modeling on data from a survey administered nationwide (N=1532), and found that for location-sharing, people with a high propensity to lie actually have increased boundary preservation concerns as well as increased privacy concerns. We explain these findings using results from semi-structured interviews.

Measuring networked social privacy

Much privacy research focuses on concerns about data protection and has established metrics, such as privacy scales, for evaluating those concerns. Recent work recognizes the importance of understanding interpersonal and interactional privacy concerns in social media, but ways to measure privacy within these contexts remain unsettled. This workshop aims to cultivate an understanding of the current landscape for interpersonal privacy framework and ways to measure social privacy for networked settings. For full details, visit http://networkedprivacy2013.wordpress.com/

The Future of Networked Privacy: Challenges and Opportunities

Building on recent work in privacy management and disclosure in networked spaces, this two-day workshop examines networked privacy challenges from a broader perspective by (1) identifying the most important issues researchers will need to address in the next decade and (2) working to create actionable solutions for these privacy issues. This workshop comes at a critical time for organizations, researchers, and consumers, as content-sharing applications soar in popularity and more privacy and security vulnerabilities emerge. Workshop participants and organizers will work together to develop a guiding framework for the community that highlights the future challenges and opportunities of networked privacy.

Personality-based privacy management for location-sharing in diverse subpopulations

Researchers in the area of privacy management often suggest to provide users with a collection of privacy settings and good defaults for them. However, our research into peoples attitudes towards location-sharing technology (considering both adopters and non-adopters) indicates that the right way to manage privacy and the right default can vary for different types of people; Key privacy concerns may differ by demographics and personality type, and personality may also influence privacy management preferences. To help researchers and practitioners better understand who is concerned about what, and how to best address those concerns, we will draw on our research and theories in the literature to construct and validate a scale that 1) assesses an individuals main privacy concerns towards location-sharing technology, and 2) measures personality traits relevant to privacy management. We will then put this scale into practice by deploying an enterprise-wide survey at our field site (a large multi-national entertainment corporation) that tests the relationship between the scale/subscales and an individuals intention to adopt location-sharing technology. We hope this will help us identify subpopulations with similar privacy concerns and/or personality traits, which can guide future design of privacy-sensitive location-sharing technology.

Bridging a Bridge: Bringing Two HCI Communities Together

ACM SIGCHI is the largest association for professionals in HCI that bridges computer science, information science, as well as the social and psychological sciences. Meanwhile, a parallel HCI community was formed in 2001 within the Association of Information Systems (AIS SIGHCI) community. While some researchers have already bridged these two HCI sub-disciplines, the history and core values of these respective fields are quite different, offering new insights for how we can move forward together to sustain the future of HCI research. The main goal of this workshop is to begin building a bridge between these two communities to maximize the relevance, rigor, and generalizability of HCI research.

Avoiding Online Harassment: The Socially Disenfranchised

As social media increasingly mediate our relationships and social lives, individuals are becoming more connected and gaining social benefits. However, many are now experiencing online harassment. Avoiding or abandoning social media is one common tactic to cope with harassment. This chapter investigates the harassment-related motivations and concerns driving social media non-use, as well as the benefits and consequences that result from not using social media. This research sheds light on a previously underexplored type of non-user who faces social barriers to using social media (as opposed to functional barriers). This chapter explains how such individuals encounter social consequences whether they are on or off social media, resulting in a lose-lose situation that we term social disenfranchisement. Building on Wyatt’s framework and the risk-benefits framework, we introduce this previously unidentified category of non-use as an extension to the commonly used taxonomy and provide a cohesive theoretical framework within which to understand various types of non-use. We then analyze the phenomenon of online harassment from the perspective of this non-use framework. Addressing the concerns of socially disenfranchised non-users is of utmost importance in the fight against online harassment. As others are increasingly connected, they are increasingly left behind and even ostracized. This chapter therefore concludes by providing design recommendations to alleviate the negative social consequences currently endured by socially disenfranchised non-users.

Social media’s have-nots: an era of social disenfranchisement

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the motivations, concerns, benefits and consequences associated with non-use of social media. In doing so, it extends Wyatt’s commonly used taxonomy of non-use by identifying new dimensions in which to understand non-use of social media. This framework encompasses a previously unidentified category of non-use that is critical to understand in today’s social media environment. Design/methodology/approach This is an exploratory interview study with 17 self-identified social media non-users distributed across age groups and socioeconomic backgrounds. A thematic analysis is conducted based on a novel extension of Wyatt’s framework and the risk-benefits framework. This is supplemented by open coding to allow for emerging themes. Findings This paper provides empirical insights into a formerly uninvestigated population of non-users who are prevented from using social media because of social engagement (rather than functional) barriers. It identifies how these individuals face social consequences both on and off social media, resulting in social disenfranchisement. Research limitations/implications This is an initial exploration of the phenomenon using an interview study. For generalizability, future research should investigate non-use with a broader and random sample. Practical implications This paper includes design recommendations and implications for social media platform designers to mitigate the consequences experienced by socially disenfranchised non-users. Social implications Addressing concerns of this newly identified class of non-users is of utmost importance. As others are increasingly connected, these non-users are left behind and even ostracized – showing the dark sides of social media use and non-use. Originality/value This work identifies types of non-use of social media previously unrecognized in the literature.

Changes in Social Media Behavior as A Result of Transitioning Social Needs and Traits

Social media researchers recognize that using student samples may not be generalizable to a broader population. However, little guidance exists on how and to what extent they can and cannot be used...