Privacy paradox in the mobile environment: The influence of the emotions

Abstract

The increasing relevance of personal information has sparked a broad debate on privacy issues on the ubiquitous Internet. The so called ‘privacy paradox’ aims to explain through rational decision-making models the contradictions between stated digital privacy concerns and the actual behaviors in mobile platforms. An analysis of the emotions that arise when users know about unauthorized personal data disclosure is proposed. A survey of smartphone users was conducted shortly after the Cambridge Analytica / Facebook scandal took place, in order to analyze the nature and intensity of a user’s emotions in relation to their knowledge of privacy breaches. The results support the paradox of privacy from an emotional perspective: although the reported emotions are intense, there is no relationship between the management that users make of their privacy settings in social networks and mobile applications and the nature and intensity of the emotions reported.