An analysis of the cause of privacy paradox among SNS users: Take Chinese college students as an example

Abstract

It has been proved that the privacy paradox does exist, yet the cause of the phenomenon remains vague. This article tries to analyze the cause of privacy paradox phenomenon on SNS (WeChat) among Chinese college students based on Privacy Calculus Theory and the TPB model and introduces two new factors: the credibility of SNS and the cost of protecting privacy. Through a questionnaire and interview survey, our result shows that there is no significant correlation between users' privacy concerns and the intention of privacy disclosure. While the more users trust the SNS platform, the more possibility they tend to disclose their private information, and the cost of privacy protection can somehow weaken the relationship between the intention and the actual behavior. Therefore, by increasing SNS's credibility, users tend to disclose more personal information to SNS providers, which may improve the competitiveness of SNSs and contribute to their sustainable development.