Analysis of Higher Education Students’ Awareness in Indonesia on Personal Data Security in Social Media

Abstract

As time goes by, information and communication technology continue to advance. Since the pandemic, the need for information and communication technology has risen to aid us in working and studying from home. One of the forms of information and communication technology is social media. Social media is where users can connect with other users in different regions, upload content as images or videos, express themselves freely, and get responses or reactions from other users (likes and comments). However, behind all those, social media can also be a place full of threats towards the personal data of its users. This study aims to analyze the awareness of higher education student social media users in the research field of Indonesia regarding personal data security. This research focuses on university students, Indonesia’s largest group of social media users, as the main respondents. The questionnaire questions were distributed online using random and snowball sampling methods for targeting student respondents. In this study, social media users were divided into active users (content creators) and passive users (using social media as a means of entertainment). The results show that active users upload personal data to benefit from it. In contrast, passive users are more aware of the use of personal data on their social media. This research also shows how they secure their data and their behavior on social media.