Exploring Teenagers’ Folk Theories and Coping Strategies Regarding Commercial Data Collection and Personalized Advertising

Abstract

New data collection methods and processing capabilities facilitate online personalization of advertisements but also challenge youth’s understanding of how these methods work. Teenagers are often unaware of the commercial use of their personal information and are susceptible to the persuasive effects of personalized advertising. This raises questions about their ability to engage in privacy-protecting behaviors. This article examines teenagers’ coping responses to commercial data collection and subsequent personalized advertising, considering their limited knowledge. Ten focus groups with 35 teenagers aged 12–14 were conducted. The findings show that teenagers hold certain folk theories (i.e., incomplete and/or inaccurate representations of reality) about how and why their personal information is being collected for commercial purposes (e.g., commercial data collection is unavoidable or all principles of privacy statements are the same). Their coping responses regarding commercial data collection (e.g., limiting information disclosure or refusing to accept privacy policies) and personalized advertising (e.g., trying to change settings or avoiding interaction) are often based on these folk theories and embedded in their everyday practices. Despite teenagers’ efforts, we argue that their responses might not always be effective. Implications for educators, advertisers, and policymakers are discussed.

Privacy concerns and avoidance behaviour towards data-driven online behavioural advertising

“…The results show a significant positive influence of persuasion knowledge on perceived benefits, perceived risks and privacy concerns for OBA, with perceived risks significantly mediating the relation between persuasion knowledge and privacy concern. Studies by Holvoet et al (2022) and Ham (2016) also presented similar results regarding the impact of subjective persuasion knowledge on the ability of consumers to make a better understanding of risk perceptions and benefit perceptions. Also, privacy concern was found to significantly mediate persuasion knowledge-avoidance behaviour and perceived risk-avoidance behaviour.…”

“…Other studies also describe that people possess a medium knowledge of OBA (Baek & Morimoto, 2012;Dehling, Zhang, & Sunyaev, 2019;Ur, Leon, Cranor, Shay, & Wang, 2012). Holvoet et al (2022) examined the coping responses towards targeted advertising practices, and the results reveal that they hold minimal knowledge about personalised advertisements. Furthermore, it also suggested a need to bring awareness about these practices.…”

Editorial: Digital Child- and Adulthood—Risks, Opportunities, and Challenges

“…The three contributions on advertising, as well as the contribution on the EU Kids Online survey, show that children, adolescents, and parents need to be supported in their development of media literacy. However, as suggested by the contributions of Holvoet et al (2022) and Nabi and Wolfers (2022), interventions seem to be only one component of everyday rationalization. Thus, normatively demanded behavior is subject to cost-benefit trade-offs, and knowledge mediated by interventions encounters existing folk theories and discussion spaces that are closed from a subjective perspective.…”

Impact of the normativeness and intelligibility of privacy interpretation information on the willingness to accept targeted advertising —A cognitive load perspective

“…The clearer the notification is, the stronger the sense of consumers’ perceived control over private information, and the more likely users are to disclose private information to online platforms. In this scenario, users often respond more positively to personalized advertising (Holvoet et al, 2022 ; Tucker, 2014 ).…”