The Privacy Calculus of “Friending” Across Multiple Social Media Platforms

2020/04/01 by Yu-Hao Lee, Chien Wen Yuan · 29 citations
Social Sciences · #Privacy, Security, and Data Protection #Social Media and Politics #Impact of Technology on Adolescents #Affordance #Internet privacy #Computer science #Information privacy #Sociotechnical system #Social network (sociolinguistics) #Social media #Construct (python library) #World Wide Web #Knowledge management #Human–computer interaction

paper · doi:10.1177/2056305120928478

published in Social Media + Society 6(2) (SAGE Publishing)

openalex publication_date 2020/04/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/25

Abstract

Relationship building through social network sites (SNSs) requires privacy disclosure that involves a calculus of potential benefits against privacy risks. Tie formation (e.g., friending, following, or connecting) on SNSs is one of the most significant forms of privacy disclosure that not only communicate one’s willingness to disclose but can also reveal past activity history and invite future interactions. Based on the communication privacy management theory, the current study examines how users consider the privacy calculus and tie-formation affordances of the SNSs to manage ties across multiple SNSs. Using an online survey of 630 Facebook and/or Instagram users, the study revealed that individuals with higher privacy concerns strategically manage their privacy by connecting with different relationship ties through different SNSs as a way to construct sociotechnical boundaries between networks. The findings have implications for understanding privacy management online and provide a potential explanation for the privacy paradox.

Citations

• Mass Communication and Para-Social Interaction
• The ‘Privacy Paradox’ in the Social Web: The Impact of Privacy Concerns, Individual Characteristics, and the Perceived Social Relevance on Different Forms of Self-Disclosure
• Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship
• Taking risky opportunities in youthful content creation: teenagers' use of social networking sites for intimacy, privacy and self-expression
• The Strength of Weak Ties
• I tweet honestly, I tweet passionately: Twitter users, context collapse, and the imagined audience
• Information Privacy Concerns, Procedural Fairness, and Impersonal Trust: An Empirical Investigation
• A Glance on Changing Workplace Dynamics Post Covid-19 in India: A Review of Psychological Employee Withdrawal Behavior
• Online Privacy Concerns and Privacy Management: A Meta-Analytical Review
• A Cross-Cultural Perspective on the Privacy Calculus

Cited by

• Friending and following [wikipedia]