Older and Wiser? Facebook Use, Privacy Concern, and Privacy Protection in the Life Stages of Emerging, Young, and Middle Adulthood

By Evert Van den Broeck, Karolien Poels, Michel Walrave. 2015

108 citations recorded by the source corpus.

A large part of research conducted on privacy concern and protection on social networking sites (SNSs) concentrates on children and adolescents. Individuals in these developmental stages are often described as vulnerable Internet users. But how vulnerable are adults in terms of online informational privacy? This study applied a privacy boundary management approach and investigated Facebook use, privacy concern, and the application of privacy settings on Facebook by linking the results to Erikson’s three stages of adulthood: emerging, young, and middle adulthood. An online survey was distributed among 18- to 65-year-old Dutch-speaking adults (N = 508, 51.8% females). Analyses revealed clear differences between the three adult age groups in terms of privacy concern, Facebook use, and privacy protection. Results indicated that respondents in young adulthood and middle adulthood were more vulnerable in terms of privacy protection than emerging adults. Clear discrepancies were found between privacy concern and protection for these age groups. More particularly, the middle adulthood group was more concerned about their privacy in comparison to the emerging adulthood and young adulthood group. Yet, they reported to use privacy settings less frequently than the younger age groups. Emerging adults were found to be pragmatic and privacy conscious SNS users. Young adults occupied the intermediate position, suggesting a developmental shift. The impact of generational differences is discussed, as well as implications for education and governmental action.

Subfields: Communication, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/bd805d151336dacd87b973f24f654f79f41939ef

How researchers see this paper

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In Communication

1. Freya De Keyzer
2. Nathalie Dens
3. Patrick De Pelsmacker

In Sociology and Political Science

1. Freya De Keyzer
2. Nathalie Dens
3. Patrick De Pelsmacker

Citations in the corpus

• How and When Personalized Advertising Leads to Brand Attitude, Click, and WOM Intention (2021, background): “Van den Broeck, Poels, and Walrave (2015) found that older respondents express more privacy concerns than younger people.”