research-article

Overwhelming, Important, Irrelevant: Terms of Service and Privacy Policy Reading among Older Adults

Authors:

Anne Oeldorf-Hirsch,

Jonathan A. ObarAuthors Info & Claims

SMSociety '19: Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Social Media and Society

Pages 166 - 173

https://doi.org/10.1145/3328529.3328557

Published: 19 July 2019 Publication History

Abstract

Social media users often ignore terms of service and privacy policies, but limited empirical evidence explains why, especially for older adults. This survey study reveals three specific attitudes that older adults (50+) hold about these policies: 1) they are overwhelming; 2) they are important but time-consuming; and 3) they are irrelevant. These attitudes differentially predict how long these users spend reading terms of service and privacy policies when signing up for different social media services and when policies change. Online privacy literacy was also negatively related to time spent reading policies. Results are discussed in terms of practical implications regarding how terms of service and privacy policies are presented to users.

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Sun KKanchi REllo FCo LWu MGelman SRadesky JSchaub FYip J(2024)"Why is Everything in the Cloud?": Co-Designing Visual Cues Representing Data Processes with ChildrenProceedings of the 23rd Annual ACM Interaction Design and Children Conference10.1145/3628516.3655819(517-532)Online publication date: 17-Jun-2024
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Index Terms

Overwhelming, Important, Irrelevant: Terms of Service and Privacy Policy Reading among Older Adults
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Human computer interaction (HCI)
    1. Empirical studies in HCI

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SMSociety '19: Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Social Media and Society

July 2019

247 pages

ISBN:9781450366519

DOI:10.1145/3328529

Copyright © 2019 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Ryerson Univeristy: Ryerson Univeristy

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New York, NY, United States

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Published: 19 July 2019

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SMSociety '19

SMSociety '19: International Conference on Social Media and Society

July 19 - 21, 2019

ON, Toronto, Canada

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Cited By

Mayworm SLi SThach HDelmonaco DPaneda CWegner AHaimson O(2024)The Online Identity Help Center: Designing and Developing a Content Moderation Policy Resource for Marginalized Social Media UsersProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36374068:CSCW1(1-30)Online publication date: 26-Apr-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3637406
Sun KKanchi REllo FCo LWu MGelman SRadesky JSchaub FYip J(2024)"Why is Everything in the Cloud?": Co-Designing Visual Cues Representing Data Processes with ChildrenProceedings of the 23rd Annual ACM Interaction Design and Children Conference10.1145/3628516.3655819(517-532)Online publication date: 17-Jun-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3628516.3655819
McDonald NMentis H(2023)'Don't Fall for This': Communications about Cybersafety from the AARPProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36100397:CSCW2(1-21)Online publication date: 4-Oct-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3610039
Windl MWinterhalter VSchmidt AMayer S(2023)Understanding and Mitigating Technology-Facilitated Privacy Violations in the Physical WorldProceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3544548.3580909(1-16)Online publication date: 19-Apr-2023
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Le TWang AYao YFeng YHeydarian ASadeh NTian Y(2023)Exploring Smart Commercial Building Occupants’ Perceptions and Notification Preferences of Internet of Things Data Collection in the United States2023 IEEE 8th European Symposium on Security and Privacy (EuroS&P)10.1109/EuroSP57164.2023.00064(1030-1046)Online publication date: Jul-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/EuroSP57164.2023.00064
Nguyen DBeijnon B(2023)The data subject and the myth of the ‘black box’ data communication and critical data literacy as a resistant practice to platform exploitationInformation, Communication & Society10.1080/1369118X.2023.220550427:2(333-349)Online publication date: 26-Apr-2023
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Suddekunte SDe SChattopadhyay M(2023)Thematic exploration of online privacy literacy and examination of its future agendaBehaviour & Information Technology10.1080/0144929X.2023.228828543:15(3893-3921)Online publication date: 3-Dec-2023
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Kitkowska AHögberg JWästlund E(2022)Online Terms and Conditions: Improving User Engagement, Awareness, and Satisfaction through UI DesignProceedings of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3491102.3517720(1-22)Online publication date: 29-Apr-2022
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Obar JPan J(2021)Open Communication about Network Neutrality? Assessing the Internet Traffic Management Transparency of Canadian Internet CarriersCanadian Journal of Communication10.22230/cjc.2021v46n3a392146:3(629-644)Online publication date: 9-Sep-2021
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