Abstract
Ever since empirical studies found only a weak, if any, relationship between privacy concerns and privacy behavior, scholars have struggled to explain the so-called privacy paradox. Today, a number of theoretical arguments illuminate users’ privacy rationales, including the privacy calculus, privacy literacy, and contextual differentiations. A recent approach focuses on user resignation, apathy, or fatigue. In this piece, we concentrate on privacy cynicism, an attitude of uncertainty, powerlessness, mistrust, and resignation toward data handling by online services that renders privacy protection subjectively futile. We discuss privacy cynicism in the context of data capitalism, as a coping mechanism to address the tension between digital inclusion and a desire for privacy. Moreover, we introduce a measure for privacy cynicism and investigate the phenomenon based on a large-scale survey in Germany. The analysis highlights the multidimensionality of the construct, differentiating its relationships with privacy concerns, threat experience, Internet skills, and protection behavior.
Highlights
The degree to which the social is intertwined with the Internet in the digital age is nicely encapsulated by the concept of “digital citizenship.” Mossberger et al (2008) define digital citizenship as “the ability to participate in society online” and frame it as a prerequisite for social inclusion (p. 1)
We argue that more skilled Internet users have higher agency when it comes to data protection and privacy online, which should result in lower levels of disempowerment and cynicism
The first three hypotheses focus on privacy cynicism as a dependent construct; within our nomological model, privacy cynicism serves as an independent construct: We argue that privacy cynicism and privacy protection behavior are associated
Summary
The degree to which the social is intertwined with the Internet in the digital age is nicely encapsulated by the concept of “digital citizenship.” Mossberger et al (2008) define digital citizenship as “the ability to participate in society online” and frame it as a prerequisite for social inclusion (p. 1). The degree to which the social is intertwined with the Internet in the digital age is nicely encapsulated by the concept of “digital citizenship.” Mossberger et al (2008) define digital citizenship as “the ability to participate in society online” and frame it as a prerequisite for social inclusion Digital participation is impossible without sharing personal data (Ellison et al, 2007; Kane et al, 2014; Krasnova et al, 2010). With the expansion of social media and the ubiquitousness of mobile technology, users struggle with estimating the sizes and compositions of their online audiences (Litt, 2012). More recent and mobile-based social media platforms, like Instagram and Snapchat, include design principles aimed at promoting habitual use (Bayer et al, 2015), incentivizing users to share (Chen et al, 2017). Paradoxically, most Internet users report both high levels of privacy concerns and high levels of private information disclosure, while abstaining from rigorous privacy-protective behaviors (Young and Quan-Haase, 2013)
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