Users' management of mobile devices and privacy

Abstract

This article aims to offer a guide of observed practices based on the main results obtained after the two-year European Feder project (April 2013-15) 'Public and private in mobile communications' carried out at LabCom.IFP, Beira Interior University in Portugal. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used (surveys, interviews, focus groups, content analysis, digital ethnography, observation ethnography, workshops, etc.) in order to describe how users manage their public, private, intimate and personal spheres within the mobile media ecosystem. Results obtained showed an increased awareness of the risks without a concomitant exploration of consequences, an extensively circumstantial behaviour pattern influenced by interface design and volatile policies, terms and conditions, and a lack of rational user behaviours and performances.