Privacy helplessness on social media: its constituents, antecedents and consequences
ISSN: 1066-2243
Article publication date: 14 May 2021
Issue publication date: 18 January 2022
Abstract
Purpose
Many internet users exhibit signs of privacy helplessness and entirely give up online privacy management. However, we know little about what privacy helplessness is, when users are likely to experience it and its implications for privacy behavior. The objectives of this study were twofold: (a) the conceptual explication of privacy helplessness as a novel construct in privacy research and (b) the development of a theoretical model that specifies the antecedents and consequences of privacy helplessness.
Design/methodology/approach
A research model of privacy helplessness that contains three subcomponents of privacy helplessness, five antecedents and one outcome was developed. The model was empirically examined based on survey data collected from 589 Facebook users in the USA.
Findings
The results of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses showed that privacy helplessness is adequately assessed by a three-factor model with affective, cognitive and motivational components. The results of structural equation modeling indicated that these three aspects of privacy helplessness are uniquely predicted by five theoretical factors: (a) prior experience of privacy risks, (b) personal mastery, (c) perceived costs of adaptive privacy actions, (d) perceived rewards of privacy inactions and (e) perceived vulnerability. Furthermore, it was found that helplessness as motivational deficits (and cognitive helplessness via this) impedes adaptive privacy actions, while cognitive helplessness promotes adaptive privacy actions when they do not result in motivational deficits.
Originality/value
This study pioneers investigation in understanding key constituents, attributes and processes underlying privacy helplessness. First, the present study developed the first theory-derived, successively validated measurement model of privacy helplessness. Second, this research proposed a theoretical model of privacy helplessness, specifying antecedents and consequences of privacy helplessness.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National University of Singapore [WBS: R-124-000-092-646].
Citation
Cho, H. (2022), "Privacy helplessness on social media: its constituents, antecedents and consequences", Internet Research, Vol. 32 No. 1, pp. 150-171. https://doi.org/10.1108/INTR-05-2020-0269
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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