ONLINE BEHAVIOUR UNDER SURVEILLANCE. A study about the privacy concern of young adults in the light of the Snowden revelations

Abstract

This paper investigates the privacy concern of young adults in the light of the Snowden revelations. The issue of online surveillance and online data gathering has reached new dimensions and the concept of privacy is discussed vastly in the media. This study aims to present the online privacy concerns of young adults in the light of the Snowden revelations. Ten interviews with young adults have been conducted. The findings of the study were that young adults are not concerned about their privacy in the light of the Snowden revelations and according to them; they didn’t change their online behaviour in connection with the surveillance. Several factors that are provoking a passive behaviour could be identified: the surveillance is too anonymous, the benefits of the Internet use are higher than the perceived risk, the feeling of powerlessness, the third-person-effect, the positive picture of the NSA, the lack of consequences and the revelations were nothing new. Development of alternative hard- or software, such as Smartphones that only send encrypted material, would thus be popular among the participants.