The new era of social media: Assessing the power of privacy in decoding use reduction behavior

Abstract

Nowadays, the use of social media is widely spread. While it is admitted its advantages there is also a darker side of it when problems arise. By appearing negative consequences of social media (ab)use, is needed to take some action to avoid harmful outcomes. Behaviors such as quitting or reducing social media use have become the new focus. Social media use reduction is one of the least developed social media corrective behaviors. Nevertheless, it’s the only one that proves to be more practical and effective. Additionally, insufficient emphasis has been given to a significant concern on social media - privacy. Given the massive amount of information collected through social media, it becomes crucial to study this perspective as privacy-related challenges increase. Considering that, the current research aims to explore the role of privacy as a driver of social media use reduction, analyzing its impact using multiple perspectives and different methods (model testing, observational and experimental studies). This study started by evaluating the current research on social media corrective behaviors, finding that more investigation is needed on the use reduction behavior and privacy as a driver. Additionally, it explored different facets of privacy, better understanding its complexity and direct impact on social media reduction. Later focused on the role of privacy but as an indirect factor. Furthermore, it investigated the capability of reducing social media use through fear appeal interventions, that revealed to be an efficacious method. Finally, it introduced an analysis of the controversial privacy paradox. Overall, this study expands the social media use reduction field, exploring it through the privacy lens, which has proved to be an effective driver. Ultimately, provides insights that can help social media users regulate their usage levels and service providers not lose their customers and help them achieve a balanced and privacy-safe online behavior.