Research On The Privacy Paradox In Social Media

In the era of big data,the continuous development of smart phones,the rapid upgrade of mobile networks and comprehensive coverage of the mobile network all have made it more convenient for people to use mobile phones to get online.Especially with the rise of various social media around the world,all kinds of social software have become a part of people's daily life around the world,social media platforms such as Skype,Facebook,Twitter,Instagram(Photo Wall),Weibo,We Chat,QQ,etc.are quickly realized the transition from PC to mobile.Up to now,the "3S" social concept of sharing,show,and seek has been widely adopted by major social software service providers.Different social media platforms will rely on the obtained user's information big data,precisely locate and predict users' personal information,like usage habits,hobbies,economic conditions,and even daily trajectories.In 1785,the British philosopher Jeremy Bentham proposed the idea of a "round prison".The so-called "round prison" refers to a kind of ring prison composed of a central tower and a ring of cells around it.In this "jail",a monitor standing in the center can easily observe the person being monitored.Their words and deeds,including every movement will all be seen by the monitor.The era of big data has undoubtedly built a new "round prison" made of data for us,network technology and various information flows form this prison' barrier,and the personal privacy of users are almost in a "streaking" state,facing the danger of being viewed,retrieved,used and leaked by "monitors" at any time.In the face of the increasingly problems of users' privacy leak in the era of big data,many existing studies have shown that when users use social software for online social activities,their online privacy concerns and their actual privacy disclosure behavior are different from those in the past.Compared to that,many new changes have taken place.So,what new features have emerged between users' privacy concerns and their actual privacy disclosure behavior when using social software in the era of big data? In such an era of big data where everyone is "transparent",what impact will the privacy concerns of social software users have on their privacy disclosure behavior? For Internet companies based on big data of users' personal information,what kinds of measures should they take to deal with the internet users' new situations and new actions ?Based on the above issues,this article explores the reasons that affect the privacy disclosure behavior of users in the era of big data by understanding the behavior of We Chat users and the game psychology of risks and benefits among college students in Nanjing.This study also summarizes the research history of social software users' online privacy concerns,privacy benefits,privacy disclosure intentions and the connotation of privacy disclosure behaviors.Based on the theory of interpretation level,the privacy disclosure intentions are subdivided into "recent disclosure intentions" and "forward disclosure intention",and then use the mature scales of privacy concerns and privacy benefits proposed by previous scholars to theoretically deduce the relationship between privacy concerns,privacy benefits,privacy disclosure intentions and privacy disclosure behaviors,and then this study proposes five big research hypotheses including eight sub-theoretical hypotheses to establish.Subsequently,these hypothesis were tested one by one by using 355 samples of We Chat users from university students in Nanjing.According to the analysis results,6 of the sub-hypotheses were supported and 2 were not.Based on the analysis and discussion of this result,this study draws the following conclusions: the privacy paradox phenomenon does exist;and the dimensions of privacy concerns need to be re-divided into “before the provision of personal privacy”and “after the provision of personal privacy”;obtaining the corresponding privacy benefits is the main reason for users to make privacy disclosures;users pay more attention to privacy terms;material benefits are the main incentives;social needs and emotional retention are the main recent disclosure intentions;false information becomes users' protection barrier and private conversations between friends become the hardest hit areas of privacy leakage.