| dc.description.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. | sv |
