Disclosing Personal Information in mHealth Apps. Testing the Role of Privacy Attitudes, App Habits, and Social Norm Cues

Abstract

Communication privacy research has employed a plethora of theoretical approaches to explain the information disclosing behavior of users. To explain information disclosure intentions in mHealth apps, this article integrates the attitude-behavior model of privacy decisions with approaches on the role of heuristics and the impact of habitual app use. Specifically, we examine the relationship between privacy attitudes, privacy concerns, app habits, and social norm cues with the intention to disclose three types of information (personal, budget, health) in two types of mHealth apps. Testing our model in an online survey including an experimental manipulation of social norm cue strength (high/ medium/ low) among N = 475 smartphone users, our findings underline the importance of privacy attitudes for the intention to disclose information, but also point out the influence of app habits and the role of subjective evaluations of social norm cues.