Information Privacy on Online Social Networks: Illusion-in-Progress in the Age of Big Data?

Abstract

In the age of big data where vast amounts of data are collected, stored, and analyzed from all possible sources, the growth of social media and the culture of sharing personal information have created privacy and security related issues. Drawing on the prospect theory and rational apathy theory, we present a research model to investigate why people disclose personal information on Online Social Networks. This paper analyzes the impact of situational factors such as information control, ownership of personal information, and apathy towards privacy concern of users on Online Social Network. We describe the proposed research design for collecting our data and analysis using structural equation modeling to analyze the data. The findings and conclusions will be presented after the data is analyzed. This work contributes to the network analytics by developing new constructs using the Prospect Theory and the Rational Apathy theory from the fields of behavioral economics and social psychology respectively.