Express yourself vs. protect yourself - European adolescents' online self-expression in context of privacy protection: role of individual and national factors
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| Year of publication | 2013 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | Because of its anonymous nature, the Internet should facilitate the expression of one's true self (Bargh, McKenna, & Fitzsimons, 2002). But nowadays, due to expansion of social networking sites and trends towards personalized web, the Internet is no longer anonymous. Still it serves as an opportunity to express one's inner self, especially for adolescents, who have to establish their identity to solve their developmental task (Subrahmanyam & Smahel, 2011). But they have to deal with risks related to revealing personal information. This research puts together individual's online activities, Internet related attitudes and psychological characteristics with the country level indicators about identity protection concerns and trust in people (data comes from projects EU Kids Online, European Values Study and Eurobarometer). The international sample of 11- to 16-years old adolescents from 23 European countries (N=15,014) was analysed through multilevel hierarchical regression. The results show that preference for online self-expression is connected to sharing personal identifying information with other people and to risky psychological factors, from national perspective online self-expression is more common in countries with weaker concerns about identity protection and with lower trust in people. Implications of these findings are discussed with regards to identity theories and online privacy. Bargh, J. A., McKenna, K. Y. A., & Fitzsimons, G. M. (2002). Can you see the real me? Activation and expression of the 'true self' on the Internet. Journal of Social Issues, 58(1), 33-48. doi:10.1111/1540-4560.00247 Subrahmanyam, K., & Smahel, D. (2011). Digital Youth. New York, NY: Springer New York. doi:10.1007/978-1-4419-6278-2 |
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