For an effective and responsible communication on social network sites (SNSs) users must decide between withholding and disclosing personal information. For this so-called privacy regulation, users need to have the respective skills-in other words, they need to have online privacy literacy. In this study, we discuss factors that potentially contribute to and result from online privacy literacy. In an online questionnaire with 630 Facebook users, we found that people who spend more time on Facebook and who have changed their privacy settings more frequently reported to have more online privacy literacy. People with more online privacy literacy, in turn, felt more secure on Facebook and implemented more social privacy settings. A mediation analysis showed that time spend on Facebook and experience with privacy regulation did not per se increase safety and privacy behavior directly, stressing the importance of online privacy literacy as a mediator to a safe and privacy-enhancing online behavior. We conclude that Internet experience leads to more online privacy literacy, which fosters a more cautious privacy behavior on SNSs.

No abstract

For an effective and responsible communication on social network sites (SNSs) users must decide between withholding and disclosing personal information. For this so-called privacy regulation, users need to have the respective skills—in other words, they need to have online privacy literacy. In this study, we discuss factors that potentially contribute to and result from online privacy literacy. In an online questionnaire with 630 Facebook users, we found that people who spend more time on Facebook and who have changed their privacy settings more frequently reported to have more online privacy literacy. People with more online privacy literacy, in turn, felt more secure on Facebook and implemented more social privacy settings. A mediation analysis showed that time spend on Facebook and experience with privacy regulation did not per se increase safety and privacy behavior directly, stressing the importance of online privacy literacy as a mediator to a safe and privacy-enhancing online behavior. We conclude that Internet experience leads to more online privacy literacy, which fosters a more cautious privacy behavior on SNSs.