Tag Archives: Facebook Messenger

Social media culture can encourage risky and inappropriate posting behavior

Posted on by
Reply

The use of social media is pervasive among young adults, but not all posted content is appropriate.

Now a new study by the University of Plymouth investigates why young adults might post content on social media that contains sexual or offensive material.

Led by Dr Claire White from the University’s School of Psychology, the study suggests that such risky social media posts are not just due to impulsivity, but might be a deliberate strategy to fit in with the wider social media culture that makes people believe ‘it’s the right thing to do’.

Existing studies show that impulsiveness is predictive of online risk taking behaviours, but this additional research with British and Italian young adults highlighted that high self-monitoring – or adapting behaviour in line with perceived social norms – was equally predictive of posting risky content, which Dr White says could mean young people think it’s the best way to behave.

To measure risky online self-presentation the research team, which also included PhD student Clara Cutello, Dr Michaela Gummerum and Professor Yaniv Hanoch from the School of Psychology, designed a risk exposure scale relating to potentially inappropriate images or texts, such as drug and alcohol use, sexual content, personal information, and offensive material. They also evaluated people’s level of self-monitoring and impulsivity.

Dr White said: “It’s counterintuitive really because it would be easy to assume that a high self-monitor would question their actions and adapt accordingly.

“But the results show that high self-monitors are just as likely to post risky content as those in the study who are more impulsive, which suggests they think it’s not only OK to be risky – and potentially offensive – but that it’s actually the right thing to do.

“The only notable difference between the nationalities was that British students were more likely to post comments and images related to their alcohol and drug use on social media, whereas their Italian counterparts were more likely to post offensive content and personal information.

“This difference shows that culture as a whole seems to play a part in what type of content is shared.

“But the fact that the behaviours predicting risky online choices are the same for both nationalities suggests there’s a wider social media culture that encourages this type of risk-taking behaviour.”

Older users like to snoop on Facebook, but worried others might snoop on them

Posted on by
Reply

Older adults are drawn to Facebook so they can check out pictures and updates from family and friends, but may resist using the site because they are worried about who will see their own content, according to a team of researchers.

In a study of older people’s perception of Facebook, participants listed keeping in touch, monitoring other’s updates and sharing photos as main reasons for using Facebook. However, other seniors listed privacy, as well as the triviality of some posts, as reasons they stay away from the site.

“The biggest concern is privacy and it’s not about revealing too much, it’s that they assume that too many random people out there can get their hands on their information,” said S. Shyam Sundar, distinguished professor of communications and co-director of the Media Effects Research Laboratory, Penn State. “Control is really what privacy is all about. It’s about the degree to which you feel that you have control over how your information is shared or circulated.”

The researchers, who report their findings in a forthcoming issue of Telematics and Informatics, available online now, said that Facebook developers should focus on privacy settings to tap into the senior market.

“Clear privacy control tools are needed to promote older adults’ Facebook use,” said Eun Hwa Jung, assistant professor of communications and new media, National University of Singapore. “In particular, we think that privacy settings and alerts need to be highly visible, especially when they [older adults] are sharing information.”

While older adults are leery about who is viewing their posts, they enjoy using the site to look at pictures and read posts from friends and family, according to the researchers.

“I am more of a Facebook voyeur, I just look to see what my friends are putting out there,” one participant told the researchers. “I haven’t put anything on there in years. I don’t need to say, ‘I’m having a great lunch!’ and things like that, I don’t understand that kind of communication.”

Sundar said that, in fact, many participants mentioned the triviality of the conversation that kept them from using Facebook.

“They believe that people reporting on the mundane and unremarkable things that they did — brushing their teeth, or what they had for lunch — is not worth talking about,” said Sundar. “That’s an issue, especially for this generation.”

Older users could be a significant resource to help drive the growth of Facebook and other social media sites, Sundar said.

“The 55-plus folks were slow initially in adopting social media, but now they are one of the largest growing sectors for social media adoption,” he said.

The researchers suggest that Facebook is helping to serve as a communications bridge between the generations and that young people are prompting their older family members to join the site.

“In particular, unlike younger people, most older adults were encouraged by younger family members to join Facebook so that they could communicate,” said Jung. “This implies that older adults’ interaction via social networking sites can contribute to effective intergenerational communication.”

The researchers recruited 46 participants who were between 65 and 95 years old to take part in in-depth interviews. The group included 17 male participants and 29 female participants, all of whom had a college degree. The participants also said they used a computer in their daily lives.

A total of 20 Facebook users and 26 non-users participated in the study. If participants had a Facebook account, researchers asked them about their experience and their motivations for joining. Participants who did not use Facebook were asked why they did not join.

Because all of the participants in this study lived in a retirement home, the researchers said that future research should look at the perception and use of Facebook by seniors who live alone.

Are your messages secure?

Posted on by
Reply

Researchers at Brigham Young University have learned that most users of popular messaging apps Facebook Messenger, What’sApp and Viber are leaving themselves exposed to fraud or other hacking because they don’t know about or aren’t using important security options.

“We wanted to understand how typical users are protecting their privacy,” said BYU computer science Ph.D. student Elham Vaziripour, who led the recent study. Short answer: they’re generally not.

Even though What’sApp and Viber encrypt messages by default, all three messaging apps also require what’s called an authentication ceremony to ensure true security. But because most users are unaware of the ceremony and its importance, “it is possible that a malicious third party or man-in-the middle attacker can eavesdrop on their conversations,” said Vaziripour, who was joined on the study by computer science professors Daniel Zappala and Kent Seamons and five other student researchers.

The authentication ceremony allows users to confirm the identify of their intended conversation partner, and makes sure no other person — even the company providing the messaging application — can intercept messages.

In the first phase of a two-phase experiment, the research team prompted study participants to share a credit card number with another participant. Participants were warned about potential threats and encouraged to make sure their messages were confidential. However, only 14 percent of users in this phase managed to successfully authenticate their recipient. Others opted for ad-hoc security measures like asking their partners for details about a shared experience.

In the second phase, participants were again asked to share a credit card number, but in this round researchers emphasized the importance of authentication ceremonies. With that prompting, 79 percent of users were able to successfully authenticate the other party.

Despite the drastic climb, however, researchers discovered another significant hurdle: participants averaged 11 minutes to authenticate their partners.

“Once we told people about the authentication ceremonies, most people could do it, but it was not simple, people were frustrated and it took them too long,” Zappala said.

Because most people don’t experience significant security problems, both professors agreed, it’s hard to make a case for them investing the time and effort to understand and use security features that applications offer. But because there’s always a risk in online communications, Seamons added, “we want to make it much easier to do and cut that time way down.”

The ultimate goal? “If we can perform the authentication ceremony behind the scenes for users automatically or effortlessly, we can address these problems without necessitating user education,” said Vaziripour.

This study is an extension of ongoing work on usable security in the two labs Seamons and Zappala run, funded in part by more than $1 million in recent grants from the National Science Foundation and Department of Homeland Security.

“Security researchers often build systems without finding out what people need and want,” said Seamons. “The goal in our labs is to design technology that’s simple and usable enough for anyone to use.”