Social networking and privacy attitudes among college students

Daily use of social networking sites (SNS) such as Facebook has become routine for millions of Internet users. Facebook is currently still the most popular social media site. Social networking has been rapidly adopted by societies around the world. In particular, social media like Facebook provide sites where users can personalize a profile with their information, pictures, and videos that can be shared with other users. This information can be used in ways that may violate users' privacy with or without their knowledge. The hypotheses were that use of Facebook, user self-efficacy for social media and users' general attitudes about privacy expectations are predictors of specific attitudes towards Facebook social media privacy, among a sample of 284, mostly white female, undergraduate college students in their twenties. Facebook self-efficacy and Facebook personal privacy violations were significant determinants of general Internet social media privacy concerns. However, Facebook use was not a significant factor for general Internet social media privacy concerns. Perceived benefits of Facebook generally appear to outweigh risks of disclosing personal information.