Do privacy perception and privacy behavior vary across cultures? [05.07.16]
Sabine Trepte and Philipp Masur published a research report on a multicultural survey study on privacy and self-disclosure.
This research report presents comparative results from five nations (United States of America, United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, and China) with regard to social media use, self-disclosure, privacy perceptions and attitudes, and privacy behavior in online environments. The data stemmed from an online survey that was conducted from November, 2011, to December, 2011. Across all five nations, N = 1,800 participants completed the survey.
The findings suggest that a broad differentiation between Western and Eastern cultures only partly accounted for differences in social media use and privacy behavior. Rather, the results suggest that European countries (United Kingdom, Germany, and the Netherlands) share similar privacy perceptions and evaluations and engage in similar privacy behavior. Participants from European countries had generally smaller audiences on social network sites and microblogging platforms, tended to limit the visibility of their postings and profile information more, and used more privacy settings to safeguard their privacy. In particular, German social media users seemed to be guarded, protective, and rather reluctant to participate in online communication. Non-European cultures (USA and China), on the other hand, use social media differently. Users from the US, for example, rated privacy-related behavior as less risky and were hence less likely to imply sophisticated privacy strategies.
The report also suggests that there are more commonalities than differences. People from all five countries thought that it is important to protect their privacy. Most users consciously decided what to share and what not to share. Accordingly, social media users do not always share intimate and detailed information about their lives and engage actively in various privacy protection strategies. The research report can be downloaded here:
http://opus.uni-hohenheim.de/volltexte/2016/1218/pdf/Trepte_Masur_ResearchReport.pdf
The survey study was conducted by the Young Scholars Network on Privacy and Web 2.0 under the direction of Sabine Trepte… read more.
