PRIVATLIV PÅ VILLOVÄGAR. En kvalitativ studie om digital natives och digital immigrants attityd till personifierad reklam ur ett integritetsperspektiv

Abstract

Executive summary Social media is, today, a place where millions of users connect and share their lives and thoughts with others. With this, social media has become an important space for commercial companies to market their products and services to a large group of users. Through the platform's algorithms and user data, it has become possible for companies to target specic groups or types of individuals with personalized advertising, all with the aim of increasing revenue. This type of advertising has become the new standard and is, therefore, an everyday experience for users. As a result, concerns about privacy and data collection practices have arisen. The topic of targeted and personalized marketing has been well studied, although there are relatively few studies focused on dierent age categories. Even fewer studies examine how people in dierent age groups respond to these marketing methods and what patterns can be identied. The goal of this study is to analyze and identify patterns regarding the attitudes and thoughts of digital natives (born 1980-2010) and digital immigrants (born 1946-1979) toward personalized marketing, specically from an integrity perspective and the delineation of the private and public spheres. We conducted ve separate group interviews, with a total of eleven respondents. The respondents varied in gender, nationality, and educational level. Six respondents belonged to the digital natives group, while ve belonged to the digital immigrants group. The interviews included both direct questions for the respondents and real-world scenarios where they could react to and reect on dierent marketing strategies and privacy incidents. To achieve the goal of our study, we formulated three main questions: ● How do digital natives and digital immigrants perceive the public and private spheres on social media? ● How do digital natives and digital immigrants perceive their privacy and self-determination online? ● How do digital natives and digital immigrants evaluate the benets and risks of personalized advertising from an integrity perspective? Our theoretical framework consists of Privacy Calculus Theory and Habermas's Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. To complement these theories, we have also included earlier research and studies on advertising and online privacy. The results of the study revealed patterns with both similarities and dierences between the two age groups. Neither age group demonstrated signicant knowledge about personalized marketing or how their data was being used. A general perception was that social media was mostly seen as a public sphere, but, under certain circumstances, it was viewed as very private depending on the purpose of use. However, digital natives showed more acceptance toward various marketing strategies and data collection in general. Their personal data was often viewed as negotiable, especially when there were benets to sharing it. The majority of the group also perceived the potential privacy risks of personalized advertising as a natural part of being online. A majority of digital immigrants saw privacy as a right. For this reason, personalized advertising was more likely to be perceived as an intrusion on their private lives. Still, only a few respondents in this group would actively take steps to protect their data. All of them accepted general terms and conditions without reading them, a behavior that also applied to the digital natives. Finally, both groups concluded that they would still prefer personalized advertising over general marketing due to the customized experience.