Online Information Disclosure in Social Networking

The advent of social networking sites presents further opportunities for criminals to obtain information for use in identity theft, cyber-stalking, and worse activities. Moreover, people lose their jobs or cannot get hired because of the information they share on social networking sites, particularly on Facebook. This paper presents research investigating what kind of information Facebook users share (or not) and whether there is a relationship between some demographic factors and the type and amount of information shared on Facebook. Content Analysis was used as a method using open coding and coding with schema. A sample of 200 accessible Facebook profiles was examined to investigate established research questions. The findings show that there is too much personal information publicly available and there is a relationship between some demographic factors such as age and gender and the type and amount of information shared. We also find two benefit factors, usefulness and enjoyment, are the sole predictors of Facebook usage continuance intention. That is, information sensitivity, trust, and privacy concern do not predict continuance. Overall, the study finds that one set of factors influence information disclosure while a separate set of factors influence continuance intention. That is, the predictors of continuance intention are completely different from the predictors of information disclosure. This means, surprisingly, that these users display a clear disconnect between their reasons to disclose information on Facebook and their reasons to continue using Facebook.