Enfoque y tipo de investigación

Table 5.5 is constructed from the answers to Questions 60 and 61, which sought to gauge the awareness and understanding of online privacy policies for the social media platforms used.

Table 5.5: Awareness and understanding of social media privacy policies Total (n=258) % Male (n=122) % Female (n=136) % p-value Privacy policies read on any

Social Media platform 156 60.47 62 50.82 94 69.12 0.002**

Read and understood 90 34.88 37 30.33 53 38.97 0.145

Read but uncertain 66 25.58 25 20.49 41 30.15 0.074

Not read 104 40.31 61 50.00 43 31.62 0.002**

Awareness of Facebook

privacy settings 214 82.95 93 76.23 121 88.97 0.033*

* significant at the 5% level;** significant at the 1% level

Evident from this table, is that the majority of respondents had at least read a privacy policy on one or more of the social media platforms used by them, with 60.47% having done so. This figure dropped by almost half though to 34.88% when the rider ‘read and

understood’ was added as a filter. This, in addition to the 40.31% of respondents not having even read the policies, is indicative of two things. The first is that based on the latter figure, a large number of respondents were either not aware, or worse, were aware but did not bother to read the policies. The second is that even though the majority of respondents had read the privacy policy on at least one of the social media platforms in use by them, the overall level of admitted understanding was relatively low. This evidenced is further strengthened by the 25.58% of all respondents, or 42.03% of those who had read at least one privacy policy having admitted that they were uncertain about the contents or meaning of what they had read. An outcome of this information is that respondents require education in terms of being aware of the existence of privacy policies and the importance of reading them but also education regarding their meaning and implications. This is a point worth noting for incorporation into possible future attempts at addressing this issue though relevant education.

The final row in Table 5.5 reflects the number of respondents who indicated that they were aware of the privacy settings available to them on Facebook, the most used social media platform, enjoying 98.44% usage amongst the respondents. It should be noted that this question was phrased to ensure that the awareness of the settings available to the users was the question being answered, rather than simply being aware that there are settings. By implication, knowing which settings are available means awareness of the actual settings, rather than simply the concept that the site in question has adjustable privacy settings.

When considering the relatively high figure of 82.95% who acknowledged being aware of these privacy settings, compared to the 60.47% who had read at least one policy, it showed that a considerable number of respondents were aware of the availability of settings, but did not relate them to policies, perhaps viewing the two as separate entities, rather than being intrinsically linked. This too is an aspect of privacy that needs addressing amongst this group of respondents, as it reveals a lack of deeper understanding of the privacy concept.

Tests for statistically significant differences between the answers provided by the different genders were conducted via Student’s’ t-test s. While most figures displayed in

Table 5.5 lean towards showing that female respondents were superior (in terms of positive behaviour exhibited) in all of the categories, the statistical tests indicate that in terms of significance, this is the case, but in only three out of the five categories: privacy policies read on any social media platform (significant at the 1% confidence level) and awareness of Facebook privacy settings (significant at the 5% confidence level). In each of these categories female respondents were more likely to have read any privacy policies, and more likely to be aware of Facebook related privacy settings. Male respondents are shown to have been statistically less likely (at the 1% level) than their female counterparts to have read a privacy policy. Based purely on these figures, it was possible to conclude that female respondents had an advantage in terms of personal responsibility for their online privacy, in terms of awareness and understanding of social media privacy policies.

While the adjustment of settings can increase aspects of online privacy, there is more to ensuring privacy than adjusting settings. This is why the policies, and the reading and understanding thereof are important: they can make the user aware of what information is private, as well what can be adjusted to be made private and what cannot, and therefore the limitation of the privacy controls available. This information can provide the user with a more informed picture of their information in privacy terms, and allow for better decision making and choices regarding not only information placed on a platform, but even which platform(s) to use and which to avoid. As an example, it would be of limited value to a user in online privacy terms to make photographs posted on a web-based platform ‘private’ to other site users via the native privacy settings of the platform, only for the company running the site to allow, in terms of its privacy policy all of those images to appear in a simple search engine image search.