Towards Understanding Usable Privacy Concerns Among Older Adults
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Information Systems
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Human Centered Computing
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Access limited to the UMBC community. Item may possibly be obtained via Interlibrary Loan thorugh a local library, pending author/copyright holder's permission.
Access limited to the UMBC community. Item may possibly be obtained via Interlibrary Loan through a local library, pending author/copyright holder's permission.
Access limited to the UMBC community. Item may possibly be obtained via Interlibrary Loan thorugh a local library, pending author/copyright holder's permission.
Abstract
While researchers have examined privacy among a wide range of users, there has been less focus on the perceptions of older adults, who may exhibit attitudes towards privacy that differ from their younger counterparts. Lower levels of awareness regarding potential online privacy violations, coupled with limited knowledge of protective measures that can be adopted to counter online attacks, are known to lead to negative outcomes for some older adults, including falling victim to scams and data breaches. The research described in this dissertation focuses on an investigation of older adults’ privacy and security perceptions regarding digital and non-digital technologies, and identifies how their usage and adoption of tools and technologies are impacted by these perceptions. To this end, three studies have been conducted exploring the (1) complex privacy behaviors of older adults and comparisons with younger age groups, (2) adoption barriers and motivators of online security tools, and (3) experiences and concerns when older adults were required to transition to online communication during the COVID-19 pandemic. An exploratory study was initially conducted, to identify older adults’ perceptions of usable privacy and general concerns about privacy threats, while drawing comparisons to findings fromyounger age groups. After identifying that perceptions of privacy impact older adults’ adoption of these tools in the second study, a third study was conducted, which investigated how these perceptions impacted older adults who were either forced to adopt or who continued using online conferencing tools due to the social distancing requirements imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic. A qualitative inquiry was conducted to examine usable privacy and security, and to gain a deeper
understanding of older adults’ intricate mental models. Findings from the work described in this dissertation can be used to inform design guidance for interface developers and researchers aiming to support privacy among older groups of users.