CYBERPSYCHOLOGY & BEHAVIOR

Volume 11, Number 6, 2008© Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.DOI: 10.1089/cpb.2007.0240

Rapid Communication

Gender and Online Privacy among Teens: Risk Perception,Privacy Concerns, and Protection Behaviors

Seounmi Youn, Ph.D.1 and Kimberly Hall, Ph.D.2

Abstract

Survey data from 395 high school students revealed that girls perceive more privacy risks and have a higherlevel of privacy concerns than boys. Regarding privacy protection behaviors, boys tended to read unsolicitede-mail and register for Web sites while directly sending complaints in response to unsolicited e-mail. This studyfound girls to provide inaccurate information as their privacy concerns increased. Boys, however, refrainedfrom registering to Web sites as their concerns increased.

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Introduction

TEEN PRIVACY LOSS caused by e-marketers’ aggressive in-formation practices has been a hotly debated topic. Pos-

sible privacy risks include receiving spam, family disputes,unwanted contact by strangers, and identity theft or Inter-net related fraud.1 All teens are not uniformly vulnerable tosuch risks; gender is an important factor in explaining dif-ferences in risk perception and risk-handling behaviors.2

This study, thus, examines gender differences in privacy riskperception, the level of privacy concerns, and privacy pro-tection behaviors within e-commerce and explores whetherthe relationships between risk perception, the level of pri-vacy concerns, and protection behaviors differ by gender.

Studies on privacy risk perception among adults and teensshow women as more vulnerable to marketers’ informationpractices.1,3 Women appeared more apprehensive about un-solicited e-mail and secondary use of their private informa-tion.3 Similar findings exist on gender and the level of con-cerns over privacy.3,4 Women were reported to be moreconcerned than men with privacy threats. Thus, it is hy-pothesized that girls will perceive more privacy risks andshow a higher level of privacy concerns than boys.

The adult privacy literature yielded mixed findings ongender and privacy protective behaviors. Several studies re-ported no gender differences in protection behaviors.5 Somestudies found that men were more vigilant than women byadopting more protective behaviors,3,6 but other studiesfound women adopting more protective behaviors such as

reading online privacy notices.7 One study indicated thatmen appeared to use aggressive and confrontational coping,while women tended to use more passive coping by not de-fying entities that invade their privacy.3 Studies on teensshowed that boys tended to supply false information to aWeb site, while girls tended to ask somebody for advice onhandling privacy risks.1 Thus, this study expects that girlswill behave differently than boys when protecting their pri-vacy.

This study further examines whether risk perception hasa positive effect on privacy concerns, whether privacy con-cerns have a positive effect on protection behaviors, and fi-nally, if so, whether this holds true for both girls and boys.Studies on both adults and teens showed that privacy riskperception has an impact on privacy concerns. For example,overall risk perception of information disclosure influencedconsumers’ unwillingness to provide personal informationto marketers.1 In addition, a positive relationship betweenthe level of privacy concerns and an array of privacy pro-tection behaviors was found.4,6,7,8 Thus, this study hypothe-sizes that the relationships between privacy perception andconcerns and between privacy concerns and protective be-haviors are positive, yet girls and boys experience these re-lationships differently.

Methods

This study used survey data collected from 395 studentsat one public high school in a Midwestern city in the United

1Department of Marketing Communication, and 2Instructional Technology Group, Emerson College, Boston, Massachusetts.

States. Their age ranged from 14 to 18 years, with 56% be-ing female. Privacy risk perception was comprised of twocomponents: susceptibility and severity. Seven items wereused for each component (Table 1).1 Susceptibility was ratedby asking how much each risk was likely to occur to re-spondents (� � 0.73). Severity was rated by asking how se-rious each risk was to respondents (� � 0.84). The privacyconcern level was assessed with one item asking how con-cerned respondents were with the ways that companies col-lect and use their personal information on the Internet.9 Pri-vacy protection behaviors were measured with five items(see Table 1).3,6,8

Results

Independent samples t-tests showed significant gender dif-ferences in privacy risk perception, the level of concern, andprotection behaviors. For susceptibility to risks, boys perceivedthat conflicts with teachers were more likely to occur to themthan girls did (t � 2.49, p � 0.01), and girls perceived them-selves as more susceptible to unsolicited e-mail than boys did(t � 2.79, p � 0.01). For severity of risks, girls perceived privacyrisks to be more serious than did boys. Privacy risks, whichgirls showed more vulnerability to than boys, were: feeling un-comfortable (t � 2.70, p � 0.01), conflicts with parents (t � 2.61,p � 0.01) and teachers (t � 2.59, p � 0.01), getting unwanted e-

mail (t � 2.31, p � 0.02), and experiencing that my personal in-formation may be misused (t � 2.17, p � 0.03). Girls alsoshowed a higher level of privacy concerns about e-marketers’information practices (t � 2.32, p � 0.02). With regard to pri-vacy-protective behaviors, boys rather than girls tended to readunsolicited e-mail (t � 3.06, p � 0.00), register for Web sites (t� 2.16, p � 0.03), and send negative messages to companiessending spam (t � 4.13, p � 0.00).

Multiple regressions were run for each gender to examinewhether the relationships between perceived risks, privacyconcerns, and protective behaviors vary by gender. Age andInternet use (e.g., how often do you go online?) were in-cluded as control variables. Both components of perceivedrisk appeared significant predictors to the level of privacyconcerns for both girls (� � 0.18, p � 0.02 for susceptibility;� � 0.25, p � 0.00 for severity) and boys (� � 0.16, p � 0.07for susceptibility; � � 0.29, p � 0.00 for severity). Next, theimpact of teens’ privacy concerns on their protection behav-iors was examined for girls and boys after controlling forage, Internet use, and privacy risk perception. The findingshowed some variation by gender. For girls, but not boys,the level of privacy concerns appeared to be an importantpredictor in explaining “providing inaccurate information toWeb sites (� � 0.15, p � 0.04).” On the other hand, boys wereless likely to register for Web sites as their privacy concernsincreased (� � �0.19, p � 0.04).

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TABLE 1. GENDER DIFFERENCES IN RISK PERCEPTION, PRIVACY CONCERNS, AND PROTECTION BEHAVIORS

Girls BoysMean Mean t-value p-value

Susceptibility to perceived riskFeeling uncomfortable 1.63 1.58 0.64 0.52Having conflicts with parents 1.64 1.64 0.07 0.95Having conflicts with teachers 1.29 1.48 2.49 0.01Experiencing financial loss 1.39 1.54 1.73 0.08Getting unwanted e-mail 3.12 2.81 2.79 0.01Experiencing credit card fraud 1.42 1.60 1.87 0.06Experiencing that my personal 2.03 2.03 0.02 0.98

information may be misusedSeverity of perceived risk

Feeling uncomfortable 1.94 1.68 2.70 0.01Having conflicts with parents 2.05 1.77 2.61 0.01Having conflicts with teachers 1.86 1.60 2.59 0.01Experiencing financial loss 2.28 2.13 1.14 0.26Getting unwanted e-mail 2.51 2.25 2.31 0.02Experiencing credit card fraud 2.26 2.16 0.75 0.46Experiencing that my personal 2.47 2.22 2.17 0.03

information may be misusedLevel of privacy concerns 2.29 2.07 2.32 0.02Privacy protection behaviors

I read unwanted or unsolicited e-mail 1.44 1.70 3.06 0.00I register for Web sites by providing 1.74 1.94 2.16 0.03

information about myself.I provide inacurate information 2.15 2.33 1.66 0.10

when registering for sites.I request to remove my name from 2.29 2.24 0.51 0.61

e-mail lists.I send negative messages to companies 1.31 1.66 4.13 0.00

sending unsolicited e-mail.

Susceptibility: 1 � not at all; 2 � slightly; 3 � somewhat; 4 � very likely to occur.Severity: 1 � not at all; 2 � slightly; 3 � somewhat; 4 � very serious.Privacy concerns: 1 � not at all; 2 � only a little; 3 � somewhat; 4 � very concerned.Protective behaviors: 1 � never; 2 � not very often; 3 � sometimes; 4 � very often.

Discussion

The findings of this study demonstrate that perceived vul-nerability to e-marketers’ information practices varies bygender. It seems that boys are more responsive to e-mar-keters’ information practices than girls, reading unsolicitede-mails and providing their information to Web sites. Boysalso directly complain by sending a flame to entities dis-tributing spam. These differences suggest the necessity of ed-ucating girls and boys on privacy issues differently. Higherlevels of risk perception and privacy concerns can cause girlsto curtail their online activities.3 Thus, media educators needto inform girls on how to cope with risks associated with in-formation disclosure to e-marketers (e.g., opt-in or opt-outoptions). For e-marketers, it would be worthwhile to adoptprivacy protection policies, such as privacy seal-program en-dorsed by third-parties, which can help girls alleviate riskperception and privacy concerns. Media educators can pro-vide boys with a privacy literacy program that explains howto cautiously weigh the risks against the benefits of sharingpersonal information with Web sites. The finding that bothgenders employ privacy protection behaviors as their pri-vacy concerns increase, although differently, is encouraging.This study hopes to add insight on coaching girls and boysto deal with information practices in the online marketplace.

Disclosure Statement

The authors have no conflict of interest.

References

1. Youn S. Teenagers’ perceptions of online privacy and copingbehaviors: a risk-benefit appraisal approach. Journal ofBroadcasting & Electronic Media 2005; 49:86–110.

2. Gustafson PE. Gender differences in risk perception: theoret-ical and methodological perspectives. Risk Analysis 1998;18:805–11.

3. Sheehan KB. An investigation of gender differences in onlineprivacy concerns and resultant behaviors. Journal of Interac-tive Marketing 1999; 13:24–38.

4. Moscardelli DM, Divine R. Adolescents’ concern for privacywhen using the Internet: an empirical analysis of predictorsand relationships with privacy-protecting behaviors. Familyand Consumer Sciences Research Journal 2007; 35:232–52.

5. Dommeyer CJ, Gross BL. What consumers know and whatthey do: an investigation of consumer knowledge, awareness,and use of privacy protection strategies. Journal of Interac-tive Marketing 2003; 17:34–51.

6. Milne GR, Rohm AJ, Bahl S. Consumers’ protection of onlineprivacy and identity. Journal of Consumer Affairs 2004;38:217–232.

7. Milne GR, Culnan MJ. Strategies for reducing online privacyrisks: why consumers read (or don’t read) online privacy no-tices. Journal of Interactive Marketing 2004; 18:15–29.

8. Sheehan KB, Hoy MG. Flaming, complaining, abstaining:how online users respond to privacy concerns. Journal of Ad-vertising 1999; 28:37–51.

9. Phelps J, Nowak G, Ferrell E. Privacy concerns and consumerwillingness to provide personal information. Journal of Pub-lic Policy & Marketing 2000; 19:27–41.

Address reprint requests to:Dr. Seounmi Youn

Department of Marketing CommunicationEmerson College

120 Boylston StreetBoston, MA 02116-4624

E-mail: seounmi_han_youn@emerson.edu

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