Privacy attitudes and concerns in the digital lives of older adults: Westin's privacy attitude typology revisited

TL;DR

This study explores older adults' online privacy attitudes, expanding Westin's typology to reveal diverse perspectives and concerns, with implications for privacy education tailored to this demographic.

Contribution

It revises Westin's privacy attitude typology specifically for older adults, identifying five distinct categories and highlighting their varied privacy concerns and perceptions.

Findings

Only 13% are privacy fundamentalists.

Most older adults are marginally concerned about privacy.

Shared concerns include spam and data misuse.

Abstract

There is a growing literature on teenage and young adult users' attitudes toward and concerns about online privacy, yet little is known about older adults and their unique experiences. As older adults join the digital world in growing numbers, we need to gain a better understanding of how they experience and navigate online privacy. This paper fills this research gap by examining 40 in-depth interviews with older adults (65 and older) living in East York, Toronto. We found Westin's typology to be a useful starting point for understanding privacy attitudes and concerns in this demographic. We expand Westin's typology and distinguish five categories: fundamentalist, intense pragmatist, relaxed pragmatist, marginally concerned, and cynical expert. We find that older adults are not a homogenous group composed of privacy fundamentalists; rather, there is considerable variability in terms of their privacy attitudes, with only 13 per cent being fundamentalists. We also identify a group of cynical experts who believe that online privacy breaches are inevitable. A large majority of older adults are marginally concerned, as they see their online participation as limited and harmless. Older adults were also grouped as either intense or relaxed pragmatists. We find that some privacy concerns are shared by older adults across several categories, the most common being spam, unauthorized access to personal information, and information misuse. We discuss theoretical implications based on the findings for our understanding of privacy in the context of older adults' digital lives and discuss implications for offering training appropriate for enhancing privacy literacy in this age group.