UNDERSTANDING AND DESIGNING FOR INTERACTIONAL PRIVACY NEEDS WITHIN SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES

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Wisniewski, P. (2012). UNDERSTANDING AND DESIGNING FOR INTERACTIONAL PRIVACY NEEDS WITHIN SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES. Unc Charlotte Electronic Theses And Dissertations.
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Abstract

"Interpersonal boundary regulation" is a way to optimize social interactions when sharing and connecting through Social Networking Sites (SNSs). The theoretical foundation of much of my research comes from Altman's work on privacy management in the physical world. Altman believed that "we should attempt to design responsive environments, which permit easy alternation between a state of separateness and a state of togetherness" (1975). In contrast, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's CEO, claims that sharing is the new "social norm" for Facebook's 800 million users (Facebook 2011), and it is Facebook's job to enable "frictionless sharing" (Matyszczyk 2010). My research focuses on reconciling this rift between social media sharing and privacy by examining interpersonal boundary regulation within SNSs as a means to align privacy needs with social networking goals. To do this, I performed an in-depth feature-oriented domain analysis (Kang, Cohen et al. 1990) across five popular SNS interfaces and 21 SNS user interviews to understand boundary mechanisms unique to these environments and their associated challenges. From this, I created a taxonomy of different interpersonal boundaries users manage within their SNSs, identified interface features that directly supported these boundary mechanisms, and uncovered coping behaviors for when interface features were inadequate or inappropriately leveraged. By better understanding this dynamic, we can begin to build new interfaces to help support and possibly even correct some of the maladaptive social behaviors exhibited within SNSs. Finally, I conducted two empirical studies that quantitatively validated some of the relationships in my theoretical model of the interpersonal boundary regulation process within SNSs. Specifically, I examined the role of risk awareness, feature awareness, burden, and desired privacy level on SNS privacy behaviors. I also examined the relationship between privacy outcomes and SNS goals of connecting and sharing with others. Through this research, I show that boundary regulation allows SNS users to reap the benefits of social networking while simultaneously protecting their privacy.

Details
Author

Wisniewski, Pamela

Title

UNDERSTANDING AND DESIGNING FOR INTERACTIONAL PRIVACY NEEDS WITHIN SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES

Physical Description

1 online resource (291 pages) : PDF

Date

2012

Degree Granting Institution

University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Abstract

"Interpersonal boundary regulation" is a way to optimize social interactions when sharing and connecting through Social Networking Sites (SNSs). The theoretical foundation of much of my research comes from Altman's work on privacy management in the physical world. Altman believed that "we should attempt to design responsive environments, which permit easy alternation between a state of separateness and a state of togetherness" (1975). In contrast, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's CEO, claims that sharing is the new "social norm" for Facebook's 800 million users (Facebook 2011), and it is Facebook's job to enable "frictionless sharing" (Matyszczyk 2010). My research focuses on reconciling this rift between social media sharing and privacy by examining interpersonal boundary regulation within SNSs as a means to align privacy needs with social networking goals. To do this, I performed an in-depth feature-oriented domain analysis (Kang, Cohen et al. 1990) across five popular SNS interfaces and 21 SNS user interviews to understand boundary mechanisms unique to these environments and their associated challenges. From this, I created a taxonomy of different interpersonal boundaries users manage within their SNSs, identified interface features that directly supported these boundary mechanisms, and uncovered coping behaviors for when interface features were inadequate or inappropriately leveraged. By better understanding this dynamic, we can begin to build new interfaces to help support and possibly even correct some of the maladaptive social behaviors exhibited within SNSs. Finally, I conducted two empirical studies that quantitatively validated some of the relationships in my theoretical model of the interpersonal boundary regulation process within SNSs. Specifically, I examined the role of risk awareness, feature awareness, burden, and desired privacy level on SNS privacy behaviors. I also examined the relationship between privacy outcomes and SNS goals of connecting and sharing with others. Through this research, I show that boundary regulation allows SNS users to reap the benefits of social networking while simultaneously protecting their privacy.

Genre

doctoral dissertations

Subjects--Topics

Computer science
Information technology
Social sciences--Research

Degree

Ph.D.

Keywords

Boundary Regulation
Environmental Design
Human-Computer Interaction
Privacy
Social Networking Sites

Subject Area

Information Technology

Advisor(s)

Lipford, Heather
Wilson, David

Committee Members

Blanchard, Anita
Lampe, Cliff
Latulipe, Celine

Degree Note

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 2012.

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Rights Holder Information

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Identifier

Wisniewski_uncc_0694D_10355

Permalink

http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.13093/etd:360