The Influence of Social Media Use on Willingness to Share Location Information

Willingness to share personal information is a strong indication of trust in persons and confidence in institutions. Mobile phones, high connectivity, and social media have opened up new ways of sharing personal information, and many are using these possibilities eagerly. Here we present results from a study on how social media use influences people's willingness to share location and other personal information. We conducted a survey about willingness to share and in addition ran an experiment where the treatment was use of Foursquare, a location-oriented social medium. The analysis shows that frequent social media users are more inclined to share location and other personal information than others. The difference varies, as they are not much more willing to share location information with persons, but more willing to share with social media and other institutions. Frequent users seem to have more confidence in institutions, both public and commercial, and are more willing to share location in exchange for location oriented services. A main finding is that the experience with social media itself is an important cause for the increased confidence.