Understanding social network site users’ privacy tool use

Every day hundreds of millions of people log into social network sites and deposit terabytes of data as they share status updates, photographs, and more. This article explores how background factors, motivations, and social network site experiences relate to people’s use of social network site technology to protect their privacy. The findings indicate that during technology-mediated communication on social network sites, not only do traditional privacy factors relate to the technological boundaries people enact, but people’s experiences with the mediating technology itself do, too. The results also identify privacy inequalities, in which certain groups are more likely to take advantage of the technology to protect their privacy—suggesting that some individuals’ information and reputations may be more at risk than others’.

► This article examines predictors of privacy tool use on social network sites. ► Certain groups of people are more likely to use technology to manage their privacy. ► Age, gender, privacy concerns, and privacy turbulence are related to such tool use. ► Use of privacy tools is also related to experience using the medium itself.