The Role of Gender, Age and Cultural Differences in Online Information Disclosure and Privacy: A Systematic Review

Abstract

AbstractPrevious studies in online information disclosure and privacy have focused on gender, age and cultural differences, however, a consensus on the role of these three factors in online information disclosure and privacy was not met. Therefore, it is necessary to find out the role of gender, age and cultural differences in online information disclosure and privacy. This study aimed to systematically present the role of gender, age and cultural differences in online information disclosure and privacy. Furthermore, the methodological quality and procedures of the selected studies were assessed in this review. The procedure of the study selection and outcomes followed the PRISMA framework. The initial search resulted in 336 studies from the Scopus and ScienceDirect databases since they were freely accessible to the researchers. Later, only 12 relevant studies were included in the analysis. The results of the study revealed that female users have less, adopting behaviour that requires higher technical skills than male users, they are more vulnerable than male users in online platforms and those female users are more likely to disclose information than males. With regards to age, the results indicated that young adult users (more especially female users between 18 and 40 years) utilise online platforms regularly and have larger networks than older age group users (between 40 and 65 years). It was further indicated by the results that young adults (between 14 and 40 years) are more likely to disclose personal information on online platforms. The culture was found to be one of the influential factors towards users’ information disclosure behaviour in online platforms. Collectivism relating to society and power distancing influence the strength of the association between privacy concerns and surveillance acceptance significantly, as well as the adoption of privacy protections. In assessing the methodological quality and procedures, this study used the COSMIN methodology. The results of the methodological quality evaluations proposed a necessity for a more in-depth assessment of content validity. This study provides numerous recommendations and suggestions for further research, such as an extension of the search to other domains rather than online context only, and others.KeywordsGenderAge cultural differencesOnline information privacy