The Secret: Everyone Spills Online
ADOTAS – Good news for behavioral targeters, bad news for hard-line privacy fiends: researchers have found that people are more likely to divulge just about everything about themselves (social security numbers, drug use, history of cheating, etc.) online than they are in other contexts.
A piece in The New York Times reports on recent research from Carnegie Mellon behavioral economist George Loewenstein. He found that people’s privacy principles are “wobbly.” In one study, when the subjects were told their confidentiality would be protected, they were actually less likely to divulge secrets – 25% were willing to fess up, compared to the 50% who spilled the beans when the issue of confidentiality was never raised.
The reasoning goes: the less people think about privacy, the less guarded they are.
Informal online atmospheres (think social networking sites loaded with slang and hideous graphics) also led subjects to reveal their deepest secrets and tawdriest indiscretions – while formal surveys made them clam up.
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Reader Comments.
Ok so we have some confirmation that indirection and seduction work better than overt suggestions, and planting seeds of privacy awareness might actually work in influencing behavior. When you think about it, though, happiness is really about the freedom to gush our inner most secrets to others. What good is it to have a secret if you can’t tell someone about it? Hey do you have email, im, phone? I’ve got something really good to tell you… but not here.
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