Privacy paradox or bargained-for-exchange : capturing the relationships among privacy concerns, privacy management, self-disclosure, and social capital
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The dissertation seeks to bridge the gap between privacy and social capital on SNS use by bringing the essential elements of social networking, privacy concerns, privacy management, self-disclosure, and social capital together to examine their complex relationships and the daily challenges every SNS user faces. The major purposes of this dissertation were to revisit the privacy paradox phenomenon, update the current relationships among privacy concerns, self-disclosure, and social capital on Facebook, integrate these relationships into a quantitative model, and explore the role of privacy management in these relationships. The goal was realized by using Amazon.com’s Mechanical Turk to test a theoretical model that used survey data from 522 respondents. The findings from the dissertation show the impact of the structural factor—Facebook social network intensity and diversity—and the impact of individuals’ self-disclosure on Facebook on their perceived bridging and bonding social capital. This dissertation employed various measurements of key variables to update the current status of the privacy paradox phenomenon—the disconnection between privacy concerns and self- disclosure on social media—and found the break of the traditional privacy paradox and the existence of the social privacy paradox. Findings also show that private information about personal information, thoughts, and ideas shared on Facebook become assets in using Facebook and accumulating social capital. Meanwhile, higher privacy concerns reduce the level of self-disclosure on Facebook. Therefore, privacy concerns become a barrier in Facebook use and in accumulating social capital within these networks. This dissertation further examined the mediating role of privacy management to solve the dilemma. Findings confirmed that privacy management is important in redirecting the relationships among privacy concerns, self-disclosure, and social capital. People who have higher privacy concerns tend to disclose fewer personal thoughts and ideas on Facebook and miss the opportunity to accumulate social capital. However, when they employ more privacy management strategies, they are more willing to self-disclose and thus accumulate more social capital on Facebook networks. Lastly, the proposed integrated model examined through SEM analysis confirms the delicate relationships among the social networking characteristics, privacy concerns, privacy management, self-disclosure, and social capital.
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