x Comparing privacy concerns of online media users across social media platforms between American and Thai individuals

Authors: Kantida Nanon and Megan Resurreccion

Source: https://blog.webcertain.com/a-social-media-trip-around-the-world/13/08/2014/

Do you think people around the world use social media the same? Perhaps it’s not something you typically think about but do you think everyone who uses social media, or the internet in general, uses it in the same way? Obviously, there’s a lot of “ways to use social media” whether you’re just scrolling through your news feeds or posting either on Instagram and TikTok or Snapchat and YouTube. However, there is evidence that social media users in different countries use social media platforms differently and for various reasons. If citizens of different countries have different motivations for using social media and different personality traits behind those motivations, is it possible that they also have different concerns on the topic of privacy?

But why should you care about this issue? Sure, everyone uses social media differently, then so what? Maybe it doesn’t matter so much to us as individuals, but it should matter to Facebook and Instagram among other platforms. Discrepancies between groups of people (ex. American and Thai individuals) understanding the platform privacy policy, for example, can be harmful to all parties. A group of users may become unhappy with the platform or use it differently without the platform realizing they are doing so. More importantly, if there are discrepancies between how users view privacy concerns on a platform, then that platform should work to ensure that there is an equal understanding among all users. At the end of the day, there should be no major differences in how people, regardless of nationality, view privacy concerns because it means there is a good understanding of the issue at hand. Hence, by investigating the potential differences in privacy concerns between Thai and American users, we can discover if there is perhaps a lack of understanding by one or both groups. Being informed on social media, especially when it is such a prominent part of our lives, is important. And if there are concerns about privacy online, then it is just as important to address those concerns.

Several studies have analyzed the potential differences in motivations and personality traits behind social media platforms between various nations. In our study, we will be analyzing the privacy concerns of Facebook and Instagram users from the United States and Thailand. This is done by sending out a survey created by us and sent out to users. We then analyze that data and discuss our results below. To further ensure there was reason to think there may be differences in how people use social media platforms, however, we read and provide a brief summary of what we found.

Literature Review and Related Work

In a study on American sports fans on Facebook and Twitter (and the Chinese equivalent, WeChat and Weibo) by Billings et al., they found that while more time was spent on social media by American sports fans, Chinese sports fans were more satisfied with their overall social networking experience [1]. Additionally, when individuals were asked about why they followed accounts associated with their favorite sports team on social media, American sports fans indicated this was because of arousal ( i.e. “because they pump me up”) but for Chinese sports fans, it was because of self-expression (i.e. “because it is a part of my self-image”) [1]. There is a difference in following sports social media accounts of self-satisfaction as opposed to making connections and identifying self-interests.

Another study analyzes contrasting motivations between American, Chinese, and Taiwanese users [2]. Cheng and Liu developed hierarchical value maps for each nation’s users’ motivations. Between all three countries, maintaining friendships was the primary motivation for using social media [2]. This is no surprise, but when looking at what was unique about each country, it was found that for example, more American users posted bible verses to exhibit optimism and encouragement, Taiwanese users sought out advice for decision making online, and Chinese users used more emoticons and engaged in gift-giving [2].

In the third study, we read about personality traits on social media among twenty countries. In this study, there were not as many stark differences between users internationally, only small differences. For example on average, more social media users in Brazil were open to new experiences than social media users in Japan, and more social media users in the Philippines had more emotional stability than those in Korea [3].

Data Collection

We created 47 questions for our survey on privacy concerns on SurveyMonkey in Thai and English and sent them out to friends, family, acquaintances, and other social media users. We collected 235 responses of which 145 are Thai and 90 are English. All responses in this survey are anonymous. Among the 90 English respondents, 63 of them identified as American. The other 27 respondents took the English survey but identified as being from a different country than the United States. Since the survey responses were collected in two languages, we translated them into English and then edited data into the same format. After we formatted the data, we have found many attributes that are missing from rows. As our goal is to compare the privacy concerns of online media users across social media platforms between American and Thai individuals, data rows missing the privacy content or user’s opinion are not useful in predicting the user’s privacy concerns, so they could be ignored and removed. Responses with users who did not identify as Thai or American were removed (future studies into other nationalities would warrant the use of these responses, however).

The primary questions that we are comparing answers of are the following:

1. Explain why you choose to keep your Facebook/Instagram profile private/public.
2. Have you ever shared your location on Facebook/Instagram (whether on your posts or profile)?
3. Have you ever been concerned about something you have posted, commented on, or shared on Facebook/Instagram?
4. Have you ever deleted something you have posted, commented on, or shared on Facebook/Instagram?
5. Have you ever read Facebook’s/Instagram’s privacy policy?
6. How well do you understand Facebook’s/Instagram’s privacy policy?
7. How much do you trust Facebook’s/Instagram to protect your privacy and data?
8. Do you have any concerns about how Facebook/Instagram handles the privacy of user information?
9. Have you ever been concerned about having your Facebook/Instagram account(s) stalked?
10. If you discovered you were being stalked online, would you change anything about how you use Facebook/Instagram? For example, would you change your profile to private, post less, etc?

If you would like to view the full survey and question bank, you can do so at this link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rBbswqtBRGd7f8wLhtJVibCZvgA7PjKD/view?usp=sharing

Results

Graphs and Visualizations

To create visualizations and graphs to better illustrate the results of the surveys, we used Tableau and have made these visualizations accessible. While we provide screenshots of all the visualizations created for purposes of comparing American and Thai data in this article, we recommend you browse the individual dashboards to fully explore the data. To view the full dashboards and visualizations, you may do so here:

Thai Data: https://public.tableau.com/profile/megan.resurreccion4904#!/vizhome/IS735-ThaiVisuals/SocialMediaPrivacy-ThaiRespondents

American Data: https://public.tableau.com/profile/megan.resurreccion4904#!/vizhome/IS735-AmericanVisuals/SocialMediaPrivacy-AmericanRespondents

The following visualizations concerning American data are on the left and visualizations concerning Thai data are on the right. Some questions and responses may differ in wording due to translating data from Thai. However, the content is all relatively the same and is appropriate for comparisons.

The tables above show the demographic characteristics of the survey respondents, which are Americans and Thais who use social media and responded to the survey between October 15 — November 12, 2020.

The first table on the left contains the statistics for the 63 American survey respondents. Among this number, there are 54 of them using Facebook. The majority of American respondents using Facebook indicated females between 18–24 years of age. The second majority of American respondents using Facebook are males between 25–34 years of age. Followed by females between the 25–34 years of age, females between 35–44 years of age, males between 18–24 years of age respectively. The second last majority of American respondents using Facebook indicated males between 35–44 years of age and non-binary between 18–24 years of age. The last majority indicated females between 45–54 years of age. There are 9 American respondents not using Facebook. Among 63 American survey respondents, there are 5 respondents using Instagram and 2 of 63 not using Instagram.

The second table on the right contains the statistics for the 122 Thai survey respondents. There are 102 Thai survey respondents using Facebook. Among Thai respondents using Facebook, the majority of respondents indicated females between 25–34 years of age followed by males between the same range of age. The third majority of Thai respondents using Facebook indicated males between 35–44 years of age. Followed by females between 35–44 years of age, females between 18–24 and 45–54 years of age, males 18–24 years of age, males 45–54 years of age respectively. The last majority of respondents indicates females between 55–64 years of age and males less than 18 years of age. There are 12 Thai respondents not using Facebook. Among 122 Thai survey respondents, there are 5 respondents using Instagram and 3 of 122 not using Instagram.

We asked people how many Facebook friends and Instagram followers they have and calculated the average and medians. On the left, the average number of Facebook friends for American respondents is 507 and the average number of Instagram followers is 399. On the right, shows the average number of Facebook friends for Thai respondents is 1269 and the average number of Instagram followers is 361. The American respondents have more followers on Instagram on average, whereas the Thai respondents have more friends on Facebook on average. Furthermore, the median number of Facebook friends and Instagram followers is relatively less than all the averages. The media number of Instagram followers between the American and Thai respondents is the same, however.

This set of plots addresses the question, “Does privacy on social media concern you as a social media user?” Both American and Thai respondents view social media privacy as a concern. 48 American respondents view privacy as a concern on social media. Only 12 American respondents aren’t concerned about privacy on social media. 118 Thai respondents think that the privacy of social media information is relevant as a user. Only 19 Thai respondents aren’t concerned that the privacy of social media is relevant.

This set of plots addresses how public or private people keep their social media profiles as well as if people have concerns with how Facebook and Instagram handle user privacy and data. Most of the American respondents consider their profiles private or somewhat private. Among the Thai respondents, more people have their Facebook profiles public, but their Instagram profiles are more private. For those who answered Yes with being concerned about how Facebook handles privacy and data (as indicated by the legend), 13 American users responded that their Facebook is somewhat private. This represents a majority of those polled. Continuing off of those who have concerns about how Facebook handles data, 12 American users responded that their Facebook is private, 2 Americans responded that their Facebook profile is public, 16 Thai users responded that their Facebook profile is private (compared to 18 Thai respondents who said they have concerns with how Facebook handles privacy and data), 15 Thai users responded that their profiles are primarily shared with specific friends, 7 Thai users responded that their Facebook profile is public. Both American and Thai respondents keep their Facebook profiles private and also have concerns with how Facebook handles user privacy and data overall.

As for Instagram, 15 American respondents do not have concerns with how Instagram handles privacy and data (while having a private profile). 9 American respondents don’t have those concerns either and consider their profiles public. 7 American respondents don’t have concerns with Instagram privacy and keep their profiles somewhat private. 39 Thai respondents don’t have concerns and consider their Instagram profiles private, while 24 Thai respondents keep their profiles public and don’t have those concerns. The 17 Thai respondents who keep their Instagram private with specific friends only also don’t have concerns with Instagram privacy. Generally, both American and Thai respondents feel Instagram privacy and user data is not as big of a concern as opposed to Facebook.

These graphics are to gain some insight on how often our respondents post on Facebook and Instagram. 38 American respondents occasionally post on Facebook while 13 respondents never posted. 6 and 4 American respondents post on Facebook weekly and daily respectively. Simultaneously, 84 Thai respondents occasionally post on Facebook. 15 and 13 Thai respondents post on Facebook weekly and daily respectively. Only 2 Thai respondents never post on Facebook. The majority of both American and Thai respondents occasionally post on Facebook.

Concurrently, 41 American respondents occasionally post on Instagram while 8 respondents never posted. 5 and 1 American respondents post on Instagram weekly and daily respectively. Simultaneously, 71 Thai respondents occasionally post on Instagram. 12 and 11 Thai respondents post on Instagram weekly and never respectively. Only 4 Thai respondents daily post on Facebook. The majority of both American and Thai respondents occasionally post on Instagram.

The graphs above demonstrate that the majority of American respondents think they don’t understand Facebook’s privacy policy. They address the questions, “How well do you understand Facebook’s/Instagram’s privacy policy?” and “Have you ever read Facebook’s/Instagram’s privacy policy?” 21 surveyed Americans think they don’t have an understanding of Facebook’s privacy policy at all. 30 Thai respondents surveyed that they have a moderate understanding of Facebook’s privacy policy and have read Facebook’s privacy policy before. Additionally, there are also American and Thai respondents who think they understand Facebook’s privacy policy a little bit, despite never reading it. Only 1 respondent for Americans and Thais think they understand Facebook’s privacy policy very well.

Moreover, the majority of American respondents think they don’t understand Instagram’s privacy policy. 24 American respondents don’t have an understanding of Instagram’s privacy. The majority of Thai respondents think they have a little bit of understanding of Instagram’s privacy policy. 14 Thai respondents have a moderate understanding of Instagram’s privacy. Only 1 and 2 respondents for Americans and Thais think they understand Instagram’s privacy policy very well respectively.

This set of visualizations is about the questions, “Have you ever been concerned about something you posted, commented, or shared on Facebook?”, “Have you ever deleted something you posted, commented, or shared on Facebook?”, and “If so [yes to the previous question], the content was.. ?” The two first questions help differentiate the thought of controlling your content and then acting on whether to keep or delete it. The options provided to the third question include Abuse, Embarrassing, Inaccurate, Inappropriate, Not relevant, Old, Non-informative/Spam, and Other (please specify). Null is shown as an option to account for those who answered yes to the first question but did not provide clarification to the latter question.

The majority of American respondents were concerned that something they posted on Facebook was embarrassing. 9 American respondents said they were concerned that their content was embarrassing on their Facebook posts. The majority of Thai respondents were concerned that something they posted on Facebook was inappropriate. 36 Thai respondents said something about their Facebook posts were inappropriate. The second majority of American respondents were concerned about something they posted on Facebook was inappropriate. This is followed by not relevant content and old content. The second majority of Thai respondents were concerned that something they posted on Facebook was not relevant content, spam, and abuse content. This is followed by embarrassing content, inaccurate content, and old content respectively.

The majority of American respondents deleted something they posted, commented on, or shared on Facebook because they felt it was embarrassing. 9 American respondents deleted something they posted because it was embarrassing. The majority of Thai respondents deleted something they posted, commented on, or shared because it was inappropriate. 44 Thai respondents deleted something they posted because it was inappropriate. 8 and 7 American respondents deleted something they posted because it was not relevant and old content respectively. The last majority of American respondents deleted their posts because it was inaccurate and inappropriate. The second majority of Thai respondents deleted their posts, comments, and shares because it was old. This is followed by inaccurate, embarrassing, not relevant, and abuse.

The chart above address the same questions as the one previously shown, but with Instagram this time. What’s demonstrated is that the majority of American respondents were concerned that something they posted on Instagram was embarrassing. 5 American respondents said they were concerned that their content was embarrassing on their Instagram posts. The majority of Thai respondents were concerned about something they posted on Instagram was inappropriate. 14 Thai respondents said their Instagram posts were inappropriate. The second majority of American respondents were concerned about something they posted on Instagram was inaccurate. This is followed by inappropriate, not relevant content and old content. The second majority of Thai respondents were concerned their posts on Instagram were not relevant content. This is followed by abused content and embarrassing content, inaccurate content, old content, and spam respectively.

The majority of American respondents deleted something they posted, commented on, or shared on Instagram because it was old. 10 American respondents deleted their posts because it was old. The majority of Thai respondents deleted something they posted, commented on, or shared because it was inappropriate. 19 Thai respondents deleted their posts because it was inappropriate. 8 and 4 American respondents deleted their posts because it was embarrassing and not relevant respectively. The last majority of American respondents deleted their posts because it was inaccurate. The second majority of Thai respondents deleted their posts, comments, and shares because it was old. This is followed by inaccurate, embarrassing, not relevant, and abuse.

This set of visualizations demonstrates the relationship between adjusting your social media privacy settings and concerns with being stalked by someone on social media (i.e. “Have you ever adjusted your Facebook/Instagram privacy settings?” and “Have you ever been concerned about having your Facebook/Instagram profile stalked?”. As it turns out, there is not much correlation here. The majority of people answered No or Never when asked if they have ever been concerned about having either of their Facebook or Instagram accounts stalked by someone. Despite this, there’s still a decent number of respondents who responded that they have been concerned about having either of their accounts stalked with at least 50 people (of both Americans and Thais). Additionally, American respondents have more so adjusted their Facebook privacy settings than their Instagram privacy settings. This is true for Thai respondents as well, but the Thai respondents adjusted their privacy settings more in general than not.

This set of tables refers to the group of people who used both Facebook and Instagram as to see whether there’s a difference in how much people trust certain platforms. The questions are “How much do you trust Facebook to protect your privacy and data?” and “How much do you trust Instagram to protect your privacy and data?” The majority of American respondents neither trust Facebook nor Instagram to protect their data privacy with 19 Americans selecting “Not at all” as their answers to both questions. Thai respondents, on the other hand, mostly selected “Moderate” when responding to these questions, potentially meaning that Thai users are more trusting of social media platforms than American users. However, very few respondents on both the American and Thai sides responded that they trust these platforms with their privacy and data “A lot.”

Content Mining

For open-ended responses, we used content mining, particularly word tokenization, to investigate the results and see common words people put in their responses. Below is a step by step process as to how we did this. We used Python in Jupyter Notebook and imported the data as a CSV file.

1. Create an empty list and filter out the appropriate open-ended-response column.
2. Turn the data frame (with only the response column) into a list so that it’s a list of responses instead.
3. From the package, nltk.tokenize, import RegexpTokenizer to tokenize each response and append each token into the empty list.
4. Using for loops, make each token lowercase, then remove stop words, and punctuation.
5. From the package, nltk.probability, import FreqDist to obtain the most frequent words in the list. We obtained a list of the 10 most common words.
6. Plot the 30 most common words and make a table of the number of times the 10 most common words occurred.

These plots visualize the most common tokens for the question, “Explain why you keep your Facebook profile public or private.” Among American people, the most common token was ‘people’ occurring 16 times. Among Thai people, the most common token was ‘see’ occurring 40 times. Other common tokens among American people include ‘want’ [occurred 15 times], ‘know’ [occurred 14 times], ‘keep’ [occurred 8 times], and ‘private’ [occurred 8 times]. Other common tokens among Thai people include ‘restricted’ [occurred 38 times], ‘audience’ [occurred 38 times], ‘limit’ [occurred 38 times], and ‘post’ [occurred 38 times]. Between these two plots, while the tokens are different, there is a similar sentiment of keeping information and profiles private between Americans and Thais.

This set of plots refers to the question, “Explain why you keep your Instagram profile public or private.” Among Americans, the most common tokens were ‘see’ [occurring 7 times], ‘people’ [occurring 7 times], ‘want’ [occurring 6 times], ‘post’ [occurring 5 times], and ‘personal’ [occurring 5 times]. Among Thais, the most common tokens were ‘audience’ [occurring 40 times], ‘restricted’ [occurring 38 times], ‘limit’ [occurring 38 times], ‘see’ [occurring 38 times], and ‘post’ [occurring 38 times]. In the Thai data, these tokens are fairly similar to the previous question (why you keep your Facebook profile public or private), and there are only small differences. The same can be said for the American side of the data. Other notable tokens that weren’t common, but provide some further insight among the American data include ‘strangers’, ‘control’, ‘hide’, and ‘creeps.’ Other notable tokens on the Thai side of the data include ‘conceal’, ‘personal’, ‘know’, and ‘annoying.’ As with the previous set of plots, while the tokens are different, tokens like ‘personal’, ‘restricted’, ‘hide’, and ‘conceal’ generally refer to the same sense of keeping information private because it may be personal.

This final set of content mining plots for open ended responses is for the question, “Explain what you would do if you found out you were being stalked online (Facebook + Instagram).” On the American side of the data, these tokens were the most common: ‘private’ [occurring 19 times], ‘would’ [occurring 18 times], ‘account’ [occurring 13 times], and ‘make’ [occurring 11 times]. On the Thai side of the data, these tokens were the most common: ‘private’ [occurring 66 times], ‘setting’ [occurring 62 times], ‘adjust’ [occurring 60 times], ‘privacy’ [evidently similar to ‘private’; occurring 60 times], and ‘post’ [occurring 37 times]. It is safe to say that in the least that both American and Thai people would consider deleting their accounts and potentially make a new one.

Notable Comments and Responses

Some of the responses and comments received provided some extra context as to what users think, so we’ve selected several of them that were unique and/or important to note. [A few of these responses were shortened.] We find that as a whole within these comments that there are two perspectives when it comes to social media and privacy: believing everyone should be careful of what they post (i.e. if there’s information you don’t want public, then you don’t post it) and believing using platforms such as Facebook and Instagram is something to be cautious about (i.e. the usage of social media may in of itself threaten your privacy).

Do you have any other comments on Facebook, Instagram, or social media in general? [American]

• Social media damages society. I work with Gen Z kids for a living and they are beyond f***ed up. It’s crazy to see how Instagram culture has infected them and changed them. I feel so sorry for the next generation. [Female, 25–34]
• Facebook and [Instagram] are actively hostile to user privacy and cannot be trusted. [Female, 35–44]
• To me it’s not a big deal that it’s not private — I just don’t post anything that I wouldn’t want strangers to see [Female, 18–24]
• I really do not have that much idea how privacy works on social media. I always thought if you want to keep your life private do not post it on the internet. [Female, 18–24]

Do you have any other comments on Facebook, Instagram, or social media in general? [Thai]

• it’s everyone’s responsibility to be cautious of what you post [Female, 35–44]
• Facebook and IG accounts have different privacy specifics. I have more confidence in IG’s privacy than Facebook, as IG accounts limit access to my information if I’m not accepted the following request, while Facebook’s access to information can include Subscribing, viewing posted photos, viewing tagged posts or photos, and checking in places makes privacy information leaked or misused, likely from Facebook rather than IG. [Male, 25–34]
• adjusting the profile privacy does not solve cybercriminal issues, so we should not post private data on social media. [Female, 45–54]
• I feel threatened by Facebook [Male, 35–44]

What We Learned

Kantida: I learned that social media has become a necessary daily activity as over 60% of our respondents occasionally post on social media such as Facebook and Instagram. Moreover, 10% and 25% of them post on social media daily and weekly respectively. The popular social media platform in our study is Facebook compared to Instagram. According to our results, American respondents have more average followers on Instagram, whereas Thai respondents have more average friends on Facebook. This might tell us that Thais use Facebook more frequently than Instagram. I also noticed that the majority of our respondents were aware of privacy concerns on social media since both American and Thai respondents feel their Instagram is not private overall. Moreover, most of them think they don’t understand Facebook’s privacy policy. Another thing I noticed, the majority of American respondents deleted their posts, comments, and shares on Facebook because they felt it was embarrassing, compared to Thai respondents who deleted their posts, comments, and shares when they felt it was inappropriate. These are proof that social media users, both Americans and Thais are concerned about what they published on social media for various reasons. However, having different age groups involved in this study would give a different perspective on how different ages have a different concern on social media privacy as I noticed that the majority of our respondents are between the ages of 25–34. Thus, the results of this study might reflect the social media privacy concern insight mostly based on users in this range of ages.

Megan: One of the first things I learned while conducting this research was that survey work was more difficult than expected. But on the other hand, I realized I enjoyed this qualitative type of work as well. I think it’s interesting to investigate what people are thinking in the here and now. Our world is always changing and evolving and as a result, people’s opinions will change and evolve, too. To make sure people continued to stay informed on what’s happening in the world, including the digital one, studies like this, I believe, are necessary to conduct. Additionally, what surprised me about this study is some of the comments people provided at the end and just how people felt in general. Regardless of nationality, there are reservations about putting your personal information out into the internet because of how platforms handle these issues. One person said they “feel threatened” by Facebook. Another says “social media damages society.” I personally feel that you do have some control over what kind of information about you is out there on the internet, but am aware that privacy is still an issue that social media platforms need to continually address as our lives become more and more public. Sometimes it seems the only way to keep your information private is to keep off social media entirely, but this isn’t always possible in this day and age. Despite the literature, there weren’t any glaring differences between the American and Thai data except when more Thai users responded they have a moderate understanding of Instagram’s privacy policy as opposed to American users who only had a little bit of understanding of Facebook’s privacy policy.

Limitations

We have encountered that inviting people to take your survey is difficult without an incentive. If we did this again in the future, we would need an incentive to further gain more responses and feedback. Having more respondents in this study will be helpful because there is a stronger representation of social media privacy habits and trends. This increase in survey participants would give more concrete and measurable results. Also having different age groups involved in this study would give a different perspective on how different ages have a different concern on social media privacy. We would have liked a better balance of participants as opposed to there being primarily one gender or one age group that answered the survey. There still was a decent number of respondents to start out with were we to continue this project further, however. Additionally, everyone who did the survey responded to most of the questions but a shorter survey might be better. Several of the survey questions also are more opinionated and may have bias such as when respondents were asked how public or private they consider their profiles or how well they think they understand Facebook’s or Instagram’s privacy policies.

Ethical Issues

It is clear that privacy is a genuine concern to many social media users and that many don’t understand privacy policies. Information privacy, or lack thereof, is an important topic in online media today. With scandals such as the one with Cambridge Analytica, it can be difficult to determine how safe our information on the internet is and if the sites holding information on our lives are to be trusted. Regardless of the ethics involved, analyzing the concerns of current users was the primary goal of this study.

Conclusions

According to the results in this study, we noticed that American respondents have more average followers on Instagram, whereas Thai respondents have more average friends on Facebook. The majority of American and Thai respondents were aware of privacy concerns on social media. Also, both American and Thai respondents feel their Instagram is not private overall. The majority of American respondents think they don’t understand Facebook’s privacy policy. Moreover, the majority of American respondents deleted their posts, comments, and shares on Facebook because they felt it was embarrassing, compared to Thai respondents who deleted their posts, comments, and shares when they felt it was inappropriate.

Furthermore, we didn’t find many discrepancies between how Americans and Thais use social media and feel about privacy on social media, surprisingly. But what this means is that there may be other social media users of other nationalities that feel the same way as our American and Thai respondents. This means that regardless of nationality or country, social media privacy is a concern wherever you are. It is important for social media platforms (not just Facebook and Instagram) to address these privacy issues and work with its users on how to better inform them of how their data being out there on the internet works and its consequences. We also need to just better understand privacy policies and educate ourselves on the digital issues at hand. Maybe it’s time to pull up those privacy policies and terms and conditions and read up on them for everyone’s sake.

Appendix

Due to there being essentially two datasets, we worked on data collecting and exploratory data analysis separately and discussed what we have found and developed later. Both Kantida and Megan came up with the idea and agreed on investigating privacy on social media platforms (specifically Facebook and Instagram) by conducting a survey. Kantida and Megan also worked together equally to write the Data Collection Report, Intermediate Report, and the Final Report of our findings.

Kantida’s Contributions: Throughout the semester, these were my contributions. I conducted the initial analysis on the Thai data (when writing an intermediate report for the class) in addition to collecting that data and helped look over all the visualization to ensure they were comprehensive and understandable.

Megan’s Contributions: During this project, my primary contributions were taking the lead on creating the Tableau visualizations and token content mining analysis. I also conducted the initial analysis on the American data (when writing an intermediate report for the class) in addition to collecting that side of the data.

References

[1] Billings, A. C., Broussard, R. M., Xu, Q., & Xu, M. (2019). Untangling International Sport Social Media Use: Contrasting U.S. and Chinese Uses and Gratifications Across Four Platforms. Communication & Sport, 7(5), 630–652. https://doi.org/10.1177/2167479518790014

[2] Cheng, Y.-S., & Liu, Y.-C. (2019). Contrasting the Motivations of Using Social Networking Sites between Western and Eastern Countries. Journal of Internet Technology, 20(6), 12. https://doi.org/10.3966/160792642019102006026

[3] Gil de Zúñiga, H., Diehl, T., Huber, B., & Liu, J. (2017). Personality Traits and Social Media Use in 20 Countries: How Personality Relates to Frequency of Social Media Use, Social Media News Use, and Social Media Use for Social Interaction. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 20(9), 540–552. https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2017.0295