Varying Privacy Strategies in Social Media Services: Should They be Taken into Account within Educational Online Communities

Abstract: Several surveys have concluded that people can be classified into groups according to their privacy concerns and orientations. In this research users ’ privacy orientation and attitudes towards privacy were analysed in more detail using Grounded Theory approach and content analysis. As a result of the analysis five groups were formed based on users ’ privacy strategies in social media services: carefree extroverts, trusting believers in technology, users tolerating control, suspicious anonymous and mistrustful escapees. The differing privacy strategies indicate users ’ differences in privacy practices, use of social media services, experiences and also in their conception of threats to privacy and methods of ensuring privacy protection. Further research is still needed in the effort to better understand the dimensions of the phenomenon and their relationship to each other. Both qualitative and quantitative researches are also needed before the results of this qualitative research can be generalized to other contexts. Even so, the findings of this study can be useful to designers of educational online communities by giving ideas for guidelines on personal information sharing for users with different privacy strategies