Privacy Concern Behaviour on Social Media Sites: A Comparative Analysis of Urban and Rural Users

Abstract

Numerous researchers have examined various aspects of privacy concern and information-sharing behaviour for online social networking sites; few past researches stated that social media users' privacy concern behavior influenced by their demographic profile. This article attempts to analyse social networking users’ privacy concerns and information-sharing behaviours for urban and rural areas of India. It additionally investigates privacy concerns among users with distinctive levels of Internet addiction. It has been observed that are most of the respondents are susceptible to privacy infringement because of their online social media awareness. The examination finds that urban and rural users vary in their information-sharing practices and privacy adaption. Urbanites might be at more serious risk to privacy infringement and information sharing on account of their valuable data and their social media practices. Furthermore, social media users are dependent on the privacy alerts and settings available to them while sharing information on the various social media sites. Users with low social media awareness might be powerless against privacy infringement in the absence of such alerts from the site administrators. Potential implications of discoveries are given and advice for future research had been also discussed.