Impact of Privacy Behaviors on Relatedness and Well-Being in SNSs

Seeking benefits such as the satisfaction of social relationship needs and well-being, SNS users engage two distinct but related privacy behaviors: (1) Information and (2) Interaction privacy behaviors. The privacy literature has mainly focused on the effect of information privacy and overlooked the role of interaction privacy behaviors. To fill these gaps, we examined a theoretical model explaining the direct and indirect interrelationships among self-disclosure (information privacy behavior), the use of interaction privacy controls (IPCs) (interaction privacy behavior), and two major potential benefits from using SNSs - relatedness needs satisfaction and subjective well-being. The findings suggest that the two privacy behaviors affect all expected outcomes, but to significantly varying levels of intensity. They also indicate that the two privacy behaviors are closely related.