Now You See Me and I dont care

Now You See Me (and I don’t care): the effects social media modality on perception of privacy

How did I get here?

Do people share more on image-based social media (Snapchat & Instagram) or text-based social media (Twitter, SNS, Yik. Yak)? So Do image-based social media cause people to perceive privacy differently than text-based social media?

Theory! -social presence theory -Media multiplexity -Uses & Gratifications (different uses for SM) -other?

Snowball sample on Facebook N=49 (35 women) Ages ranged from 18 -63 (mean=33) +50% check Facebook multiple times a day 25% check Facebook once a day 15% check Facebook multiple times per hour

Survey experiment: 1) Mood questions 2) Personality (big 5, 10 -item) 3) Randomly sent to 1 of 2 conditions, either: 1) or for 1 minute 4) Privacy perception 5) Privacy concern 6) Demographics + mobile vs. computer

Results (the little stuff): a) b) c) d) e) Loneliness decreases with age Contentment goes up with perception of privacy Joyfulness increases with FB use frequency More frequent checkers are more likely to use mobile Frequency of use also had small impact on perception of privacy. . .

Results (the good stuff): Did image-based social media cause people to perceive online activity as more private? Answer: NO!

Results (the other stuff): Did image-based social media cause people to worry less about privacy? Answer: KIND OF But actually the opposite And only for desktop users

Results (the weird stuff): Did image-based social media cause people to worry more about privacy when signing up for a new app? Answer: Yes!

Limitations: -Snowball -Underpowered -Unfocused -other theories or suggestions?

Matthew Pittman Ph. D candidate, University of Oregon mpittman@uoregon. edu