Contextualised concerns: The online privacy attitudes of young adults

Abstract

Existing research into online privacy attitudes, whilst useful, remains insufficient. This paper begins by outlining the shortcomings of this existing research before offering a fresh approach which is inspired by Solove's notion of "situated and dynamic" privacy. With reference to ongoing PhD research it is argued that the generation of rich, situated data can help us to understand privacy attitudes in context. In this research semi-structured interviews are being used in order to grasp how young adults understand, manage, and negotiate their privacy across online settings. The paper concludes with a call for further qualitative research into online privacy attitudes and suggests focusing on more niche online settings than Facebook. © 2011 IFIP International Federation for Information Processing.