Context and Privacy Concerns in Friend Request Decisions

Abstract

Friend request acceptance and information disclosure constitute 2 important privacy decisions for users to control the flow of their personal information in social network sites (SNSs). These decisions are greatly influenced by contextual characteristics of the request. However, the contextual influence may not be uniform among users with different levels of privacy concerns. In this study, we hypothesize that users with higher privacy concerns may consider contextual factors differently from those with lower privacy concerns. By conducting a scenario‐based survey study and structural equation modeling, we verify the interaction effects between privacy concerns and contextual factors. We additionally find that users' perceived risk towards the requester mediates the effect of context and privacy concerns. These results extend our understanding about the cognitive process behind privacy decision making in SNSs. The interaction effects suggest strategies for SNS providers to predict user's friend request acceptance and to customize context‐aware privacy decision support based on users' different privacy attitudes.