An instrument for measuring social media users' information privacy concerns

Privacy concerns associated with the use of social media applications is gaining significant interest both in the academic and organizational communities. Calls have been made to researchers to investigate the theoretical underpinnings that explain concerns for information privacy in the social media context. A review of the information privacy literature reveals that till date, no study has taken a theory-driven approach to understand privacy concerns in the social media context. To fill the gap in the literature, this article evaluates information privacy concern instrument from prior research in the social media context. This Chapter draws on Social Penetration theory and Communication Privacy Management theory to explain social media users' information privacy concern (SMIPC). Drawing on a sample of 270 avid social media users,this study examines the factor structure of the dimensions of concern for information privacy instrument from prior research. An exploratory factor analysis followed by a confirmatory factor analysis revealed three firstorder factor structure of social media users' concern for information privacy measurement instrument. Further analysis of alternative factor models revealed that a second order factor structure of SMIPC performs better than its first-order factor structure in the social media context.