Abstract
Digital interactions via the internet have become the norm rather than the exception in our global society. Concerns have been raised about human-centered privacy and the often unreflected self-disclosure behavior of internet users. This study on human-centered privacy follows two major aims: first, investigate the willingness of university students (as digital natives) to disclose private data and information about their person, social and academic life, their mental health as well as their health behavior habits, when taking part as a volunteer in a scientific online survey. Second, examine to what extent the participants’ self-disclosure behavior can be modulated by experimental induction of privacy awareness (PA) or trust in privacy (TIP) or a combination of both (PA and TIP). In addition, the role of human factors such as personality traits, gender or mental health (e.g., self-reported depressive symptoms) on self-disclosure behavior was explored. Participants were randomly assigned to four experimental groups. In group A (n = 50, 7 males), privacy awareness (PA) was induced implicitly by the inclusion of privacy concern items. In group B (n = 43, 6 males), trust in privacy (TIP) was experimentally induced by buzzwords and by visual TIP primes promising safe data storage. Group C (n = 79, 12 males) received both, PA and TIP induction, while group D (n = 55, 9 males) served as control group. Participants had the choice to answer the survey items by agreeing to one of a number of possible answers including the options to refrain from self-disclosure by choosing the response options “don’t know” or “no answer.” Self-disclosure among participants was high irrespective of experimental group and irrespective of psychological domains of the information provided. The results of this study suggest that willingness of volunteers to self-disclose private data in a scientific online study cannot simply be overruled or changed by any of the chosen experimental privacy manipulations. The present results extend the previous literature on human-centered privacy and despite limitations can give important insights into self-disclosure behavior of young people and the privacy paradox.
Highlights
Scientist, companies and institutional organizations are able to collect, monitor and analyze vast amounts of digital data via the internet from users all over the globe
As far as overall self-disclosure of private and health data is concerned, it was expected that university students taking part voluntarily in the survey will show a low number of “no answer” or “don’t know” answers suggesting little concern and worry about data privacy among the participants
This study investigated the willingness of university students to self-disclose via the internet private and health-related information when taking part as volunteers in online scientific studies
Summary
Companies and institutional organizations are able to collect, monitor and analyze vast amounts of digital data via the internet from users all over the globe. Smartphones, tablets, and other computing devices, communication has become ubiquitous— enabling data tracking, data collection, and data exchange in arbitrary situations at home or at work As part of this digitization progress and world-wide use of internet-based communication and data processing, the internet user’s self-disclosure behavior as well as the user’s understanding, awareness of and trust in data privacy have become prominent topics and fields of scientific research (Barhamgi et al, 2021). The findings mirror a striking paradox: albeit internet users worry about their data, they display a high willingness to openly self-disclose by sharing private data on the internet This paradox (worry about privacy despite personal data disclosure on the internet) has been investigated under the label privacy paradox (Bedrick et al, 1998; Barnes, 2006). Thoughtless handling of private information can have negative effects for both, the user and the service provider (Boyd and Ellison, 2007)
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