Article by Adriana Sofia Palloks (✉ adriana.palloks@univie.ac.at)
To share or not to share personal data? Users can decide for themselves what information they disclose on the internet. Interestingly, they often share personal information even though they are concerned about their privacy at the same time. This contradictory behavior is called the Privacy Paradox. The study "A longitudinal analysis of the privacy paradox" conducted by Tobias Dienlin from the University of Vienna, Philipp Masur (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) and Sabine Trepte (University of Hohenheim) explores attitudes toward privacy and actual online sharing behavior of their sample.
The longitudinal study was implemented between May 2014 and May 2015. A total of 1,403 German participants took part in the survey, which is representative of the German population. These were interviewed three times at six-month intervals on the topics of privacy and their online sharing behavior, with the aim of answering four overarching research questions. First, based on a between-person comparison, how is privacy concern related to the digital dissemination of personal information? Second, does information dissemination turn out to be less than usual when concerns are greater than usual? Third, what are the possible long-term effects? Does concern decrease as more information is shared or vice versa? And fourth, what is the role of attitudes toward privacy in general?
Results reveal that people who are – on average across all three waves – more concerned about their privacy than others are significantly more likely to have a negative attitude toward online dissemination of personal information and, in addition, share less information online. People who are more concerned about their privacy than usual also tend to share less personal information online. In contrast, there are individuals whose positive attitude toward sharing personal information also indicates a higher willingness to share.
Finally, long-term effects could not be detected. Neither, whether a change in privacy concern affects attitudes toward online sharing of personal information, nor, whether changes in attitudes toward online sharing of personal information affect privacy concerns. Furthermore, whether sharing behavior affects attitudes in the long term could also not be demonstrated.
Given the findings, the theory of the Privacy Paradox which states that although people have great concerns about their privacy, they still share a lot of data online, could not be confirmed or demonstrated. "On the contrary, people who were more concerned about their privacy shared less information. And when we asked more specifically about concrete attitudes, we even found strong correlations" says study author Tobias Dienlin. His conclusion is that online behavior seems to be in line with users' attitudes.
Publication details
Dienlin, T., Masur, P. K., & Trepte, S. (2021). A longitudinal analysis of the privacy paradox. New Media & Society. Advance online publication. doi:10.1177/14614448211016316