Christoph Lutz

Privacy-Aware Monitoring for Assisted Living: Ethical, Legal, and Technological Aspects of Audio- and Video-Based AAL Solutions p. 313-331 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-84158-3_13

Active Assisted Living (AAL) systems use advanced technology to help older, impaired, or frail people live independently and stay active in society. These systems rely on automated data monitoring in home or care environments, processing video, image, audio, environmental, and motion data through artificial intelligence (AI), particularly machine learning. Thus, AAL systems offer considerable opportunities for efficient health monitoring, increased autonomy, and enhanced quality of life for older adults. However, AAL technologies also present ethical, legal, and social challenges, particularly around privacy due to the sensitive nature of the data collected and the vulnerability of the populations served. Beyond privacy, the broader social implications of AAL must be considered, including the potential reshaping of care relationships and work within the sector. This chapter provides an in-depth overview of the social and societal issues surrounding AAL, offering a comprehensive literature review that highlights the challenges in implementing these systems in everyday life. Specifically, the chapter discusses cultural differences, biases, the normalization of surveillance, the reshaping of care work and relationships, and matters of trust and adoption, alongside the opportunities AAL technology offers for prolonged independent living.

Information, Communication & Society online first Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2025.2500484

Digital nomads (DNs) employ digital tools to work remotely while traveling, allowing them to explore various locations without having the constraints of a single workplace. This research focusses on the perceived challenges of DNs in forming and maintaining romantic relationships. Through participant observation, 20 in-depth interviews with DNs, and an analysis of the r/digitalnomad sub-reddit, this study explores: 1) how DNs explain their experience with romantic relationships in relation to their lifestyle; 2) how they deal with the difficulties of forming and maintaining romantic relationships. Guided by relational work and inter-role conflict theories, we identify four conflict types of within DNs' romantic relationships: attitude-based, location-based, time-based, and money-based. To address these conflicts, our interviewees used resource conservation, segmentation, and compensation mechanisms. The paper also discusses DNs' strategies for finding new romantic partners, such as attending DN events organised via social media groups to connect with fellow DNs, as many believed that finding a partner who was also a DN would be ideal to keep their lifestyle and not to have to reduce their mobility patterns. Moreover, DNs engaged with locals through meetups and dating apps. In existing romantic relationships, technology played an important role by enabling connectedness between partners that might be in different locations. Higher levels of communication were also key to maintaining romantic relationships and negotiating boundaries. Our findings highlight the prioritisation of the lifestyle over romantic c​o​m​

The Information Society 41(2) p. 69-90 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/01972243.2025.2451863

The ways in which privacy is understood, defined, perceived, and enacted are contingent on cultural, social, political, economic, and technological settings. Yet, privacy research is often criticized for not adequately accounting for these. A comparative perspective requires the contextualization of privacy through investigating similarities and differences across contexts. This article outlines the Comparative Privacy Research Framework, which involves (a) scrutinizing one’s position (of power) and epistemological biases, (b) assessing the comparability of the object under study, (c) identifying and justifying meaningful units of comparison, and (d) reflecting on how these units of comparison interact in shaping privacy. We conclude by proposing a comparative privacy research agenda that informs efforts in privacy regulation, education, and research.

Social Media + Society 11(2) Doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051251344460

This editorial introduces the Social Media + Society special issue “Comparative Approaches To Studying Privacy.” Recognizing the importance of privacy in today’s digital societies and volatile political and regulatory environments, the editorial highlights the pressing need for comparative research on the topic and describes the articles in this special issue. The special issue addresses the theoretical, methodological, and practical challenges and opportunities of researching privacy across cultural, social, political, economic, and technological units of comparison. The articles in the special issue explore diverse privacy understandings, attitudes, and practices across contexts, challenging decontextualized and mono-cultural understandings in relation to social media and adjacent technologies. The special issue articles also illustrate fruitful ways privacy can be studied across different units of comparison with qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods. Several contributions in the special issue, including this editorial, not only broaden the scope of privacy research but also encourage engagement with multi-stakeholder perspectives in the context of social media, considering the role of policy, industry, and civil society. In the editorial, we briefly relate the special issue and its contributions to the comparative privacy research framework (CPRF), which serves as a useful starting point and a solid conceptual foundation for comparative privacy research. Finally, we develop a research agenda for future comparative privacy research, which critically examines position of power and epistemological biases, evaluates the comparability of the subject of study, determining and justifying relevant units of comparison, and helps to analyze how these units interact in shaping the concept of privacy.

Frontiers in Sustainable Tourism 4 p. 1-11 Doi: https://doi.org/10.3389/frsut.2025.1561748

Short-term rental (STR) platforms hold promise for promoting inclusive tourism, although the digital divide risks barring certain groups from reaping these benefits. Existing research has analyzed the impacts of STR platforms but there is a lack of evidence on impact perceptions, especially as they relate to socio-demographic variables. To address this shortcoming and using digital inequality theory, we report the results of a survey in the United States and the United Kingdom. We find that age is a significant factor in shaping perceptions and engagement with STR platforms. Younger individuals have a more positive outlook toward STRs and are more likely to use them. Education and income also influence STR use. American respondents generally had more positive perceptions of STR impacts yet showed less engagement with the platforms than their British counterparts. These insights can inform strategies to mitigate digital inequalities and optimize the inclusivity of STR platforms.

Social science computer review Doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/08944393251341201

Current Issues in Tourism Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/13683500.2025.2453588

This study investigates the sustainability implications of Short-Term Rental (STR) platforms through a qualitative approach, analysing rich data from residents of the United States and United Kingdom. Using thematic analysis, we identify positive and negative perceived impacts of STRs across three dimensions of sustainability and look at four key stakeholders affected by these platforms. The economic aspect of sustainability received the most attention and was perceived as the most pronounced impact on all stakeholders including guests, hosts, local businesses and neighbours. Furthermore, a comparison between the two countries indicates that a larger proportion of British residents perceive minimal to no impacts of STRs on their communities compared to their American counterparts. This research shows the complex interplay between STR platforms and sustainability, providing valuable insights for policymakers and stakeholders striving to navigate the challenges and opportunities presented by the sharing economy in the tourism sector.

Digital Society: Ethics, Socio-Legal and Governance of Digital Technology 4 p. 1-12 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s44206-025-00167-w

We have witnessed an increased use of technology in every facet of our lives. These technologies come with great promises, such as enabling more independent living for older adults or people with physical disabilities, yet also fears, for instance, over privacy concerns or trust in automated systems. In this Topical Collection, we focus on Active and Assisted Living (AAL) technologies, which require trustworthiness and adherence to privacy regulations for successful adoption. The Collection contains six selected papers that address themes like privacy-by-design, trust in AI, and balancing privacy with technological innovation under regulations like GDPR and the AI Act. The presented articles emphasize the user-centered, privacy-friendly approaches to AAL designs, robust regulatory frameworks, and interdisciplinary methodologies to ensure ethical, trustworthy technologies.

British Journal of Industrial Relations 63(1) p. 180-208 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/bjir.12840

Despite initial research about the biases and perceptions of large language models (LLMs), we lack evidence on how LLMs evaluate occupations, especially in comparison to human evaluators. In this paper, we present a systematic comparison of occupational evaluations by GPT-4 with those from an in-depth, high-quality and recent human respondents survey in the UK. Covering the full ISCO-08 occupational landscape, with 580 occupations and two distinct metrics (prestige and social value), our findings indicate that GPT-4 and human scores are highly correlated across all ISCO-08 major groups. At the same time, GPT-4 substantially under- or overestimates the occupational prestige and social value of many occupations, particularly for emerging digital and stigmatized or illicit occupations. Our analyses show both the potential and risk of using LLM-generated data for sociological and occupational research. We also discuss the policy implications of our findings for the integration of LLM tools into the world of work.

Journal of Business Research 180 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2024.114716

With the emergence of the digital economy, the occupational landscape in many countries has undergone major transformations. While scholars have started to study the working conditions of digital economy occupations such as app-based food delivery couriers and social media influencers, assessing societal perceptions of these occupations remains uncharted territory. This article provides a substantive contribution through an in-depth analysis of occupational prestige and occupational social value perceptions across 76 UK digital economy occupations. Leveraging two expansive surveys with more than 2400 respondents, the findings show that these nascent occupations tend to have modest prestige, and that their perceived social value is lower than that of analogous non-digital occupations. Socio-economic factors and attitudes foster variability in societal perceptions. The research thus advances a nuanced understanding of the evolving digital economy, providing evidence for fellow researchers, policymakers, and the larger public, for whom the results help contextualize career choices and occupational identities.

Big Data & Society (BD&S) 11(3) Doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/20539517241270663

The growing trend of collecting data about individuals to track past actions and infer future attitudes and behaviors has fueled popular and scholarly interest in the erosion of privacy. Recent shifts in technologies around machine learning and artificial intelligence have intensified these concerns. This editorial introduces the articles in the special theme on digital resignation and privacy cynicism: concepts developed in the past decade to explain the growing powerlessness individuals feel in relation to their digital privacy even as they continue to experience consternation over the collection and use of their personal information. The papers in this special theme engage and extend existing research on these topics. The original articles and commentaries pose theoretical and practical questions related to the ways people confront the powerful institutional forces that increasingly shape many aspects of the information environment. They employ several methodologies and theoretical perspectives and extend the range of geographic, political, cultural, and institutional contexts in which privacy cynicism and digital resignation can be identified and examined. In addition to contextualizing these contributions, this editorial maps a range of related concepts including digital resignation, privacy cynicism, privacy apathy, surveillance realism, privacy fatigue, and privacy helplessness. It concludes by identifying key themes across the papers in this collection and provides directions for future research.

Voice Assistants in Private Homes: Media, Data and Language in Interaction and Discourse p. 243-262

Smart speakers have been widely adopted but come with substantial privacy risks, touching on different privacy types such as informational, social, and physical privacy. Scholars have increasingly studied the privacy implications of smart speakers, finding that users tend to have limited privacy concerns and engage infrequently in privacy protection behavior. Extant research also stresses the contextual and situated nature of privacy around smart speakers, pointing to relevant affordances of the technology. Despite these knowledge advancements, a glitch studies perspective on smart speaker interactions and privacy is notably missing. The glitch studies approach was developed by Rosa Menkman at the intersection of art, technology, and critical social research. It directs the attention to glitches as seemingly small and mundane but powerful moments of interruption that allow for reflection and have productive character. In this contribution, we introduce a glitch studies perspective to the investigation of smart speakers and privacy, showing its fruitfulness. We first discuss the literature on smart speakers and privacy, before providing a concise overview of the glitch studies approach. We then present our data and methodological approach. Based on open text responses from an online survey in the United Kingdom, we identify four types of smart speaker glitches: randomly starting to talk or carry out unexpected activities, misinterpreting the user, technical issues related to connectivity, and violating social and contextual norms. Each glitch type is described in turn, with quotes from the survey as illustrative

Journal of Travel Research Doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/00472875231224242

Following the recent rise of digital nomadism, this study explores changing patterns of travel and work among highly mobile individuals. We draw on liquid modernity theory to analyze data from Reddit’s r/digitalnomad subreddit over 3.5 years. Fifteen topics and seven clusters capture the rich discussions. The most discussed topic was Destination review & recommendation, followed by Emotional needs & lifestyle choice. Regulatory issues also emerged as a significant concern. The pandemic influenced sentiment fluctuations over time, but the tone of topics remained mostly neutral. Our research provides nuanced insights into digital nomads’ habits, concerns, and lifestyle choices, showing how travel-related aspects feature front and center. For the tourism industry, our findings offer actionable suggestions to cater to this dynamic and economically powerful traveler group. Finally, and as a theoretical contribution, the study enhances our understanding of the role of global disruptive events, such as pandemics, in liquid modernity.

Media, Culture and Society 47(3) p. 546-566 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/01634437241290087

The ‘digital nomad’ (DN) neotribe includes professionals who work remotely from different locations. Despite the benefits of digital nomadism (e.g., work flexibility, high mobility, leisure-centeredness) and opportunities for meeting like-minded people, one of the consequences of the lifestyle may be loneliness. By using 30 in-depth interviews, this study explores the interaction between digital nomadism and loneliness. We conceptualize the DN lifestyle as a continuum that may, but does not have to, lead to feelings of loneliness. External factors such as lack of social support, often related to the capacity to stay in a place long enough to build a network or the social competence skills to connect with others, may contribute to greater levels of loneliness. Conversely, in line with networked individualism, it examines how DNs seek more control over constructing their own social networks in the context of a hyperindividualistic society. Instagram, Facebook groups, Slack, MeetUp, CouchSurfing, and Tinder are identified as key platforms for DNs to connect with people, especially for bridging social capital, whereas WhatsApp is used more for bonding social capital. The paper offers a timely discussion of the way that DNs use different social media platforms to overcome loneliness, forge intimate connections, and build community.

Big Data & Society (BD&S) 11(1) p. 1-13 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/20539517241232629

A growing body of research highlights a trend toward widespread attitudes of privacy cynicism, apathy, and resignation among Internet users. In this work, we extend these discussions by concentrating on the concept of user agency. Specifically, we examine how five types of structural constraints — interpersonal, cultural, technological, economic, and political — restrict user agency and contribute to the prevalence of privacy cynicism as a common response. Drawing on critical data studies and adopting an intersectional lens, we demonstrate how these constraints disproportionately impact various social groups unequally, leading to a disparate distribution of agency and privacy cynicism. Furthermore, we contend that the sense of powerlessness engendered by excessive constraints on user agency can, in turn, exacerbate user vulnerability to such constraints, potentially initiating a vicious cycle of disempowerment. The article enriches the field of privacy research by linking the traditionally individual-focused and psychological dimensions of privacy with critical surveillance studies and by proposing potential interventions to mitigate privacy cynicism.

Technology in society 77 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techsoc.2024.102586

Short-term rental platforms such as Airbnb have enjoyed considerable success in recent years. However, critics accuse the platforms of having negative impacts, leading to gentrification, disruption, and increased rent and house prices. While research has investigated actual impacts of short-term rental platforms, we lack systematic, generalizable, and comparative evidence on the perceived impacts of such platforms, especially from a social exchange perspective. To address this shortcoming, we conducted a representative survey in the US and UK with a holistic set of perceived impacts. Using social exchange theory (SET) and applying a range of multi-variate statistical analyses, especially exploratory factor analysis and cluster analysis, we systematically compare these two contexts to identify clusters that perceived the social exchanges derived from STRs as distinct. The findings indicate that US residents assess short-term rental platforms more positively than UK residents, especially for recreational, amenities-oriented and economic impacts. Among respondents who have used short-term rental platforms as guests, the perceptions are more alike between the two countries, suggesting a homogenization effect. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of the results.

New Media & Society 26(1) p. 190-215 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448211056863

Digital microwork consists of remote and highly decontextualized labor that is increasingly governed by algorithms. The anonymity and granularity of such work is likely to cause alienation among workers. To date we know little about how workers reconcile such potential feelings of alienation with their simultaneous commitment to the platform. Based on a longitudinal survey of 460 workers on a large microworking platform and a combination of quantitative and qualitative analyses, we show that (1) alienation is present in digital microwork. However, our study also finds that (2) workers’ commitment to the platform over time may alter their subjective perceptions of alienation. Drawing from qualitative statements, we show (3) how workers perform identity work that might help reconcile feelings of alienation with simultaneous platform commitment. Our findings contribute to solving the paradox of worker commitment to precarious platform labor, which is an issue frequently raised in the digital labor literature.

Algorithms, Artificial Intelligence and Beyond: Theorising Society and Culture of the 21st Century p. 193-2010 Doi: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781032646930-17

Research in Social Stratification and Mobility 91 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rssm.2024.100935

Sociological research has long been interested in occupational evaluation. However, occupational research remains hampered by conceptual ambiguity and methodological problems. To address these issues, we present new indices of occupational prestige and occupational social value for 576 occupation titles aligned with the ILO International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO-08). A shorter core list with 130 occupation titles – one per ISCO-08 minor group – is also provided. Based on comprehensive and recent evidence from 2429 respondents, we carve out the evaluative landscape of occupations in the United Kingdom. We show how occupational prestige and occupational social value are correlated but distinct. A clear hierarchy appears, with highly educated occupations at the top and stigmatised or illicit occupations at the bottom. The study thus contributes to social stratification research and encourages reuse of the scores in future occupational research.

The De Gruyter Handbook of Robots in Society and Culture p. 179-200 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110792270-010

Social robots are increasingly used in different domains, such as healthcare, education, and retail. Researchers across disciplines have shown how social robots differ from other technologies, for example in terms of ethical, legal, and social (ELS) aspects. Privacy is a particularly important and relevant ELS aspect of social robots, given their heightened autonomy, data-processing capabilities, and physical mobility. This chapter provides an overview of key privacy implications in relation to social robots. It reviews useful privacy theories and discusses recent studies on privacy and social robots, showing how such research has become more empirical over time but still prioritizes data protection and data-related aspects of privacy over other dimensions, such as physical, psychological, and social ones. The chapter also combines a social science and legal lens, showing how the law addresses relevant social and ethical implications, particularly in Europe. It concludes with a future research agenda on how to investigate the topic.

The Routledge Handbook of Privacy and Social Media p. 134-143

In this chapter, we discuss the concept of privacy cynicism as a cognitive coping mechanism to the complex privacy landscape users are confronted with within digital societies. We situate the development of the concept within the privacy paradox and privacy calculus literature, offer a definition, and explain its four dimensions (mistrust, powerlessness, uncertainty, and resignation). Since privacy cynicism is adjacent but distinct from recently introduced concepts, we contrast it with privacy apathy (Hargittai & Marwick, 2016), surveillance realism (Dencik & Cable, 2017), privacy fatigue (Choi et al., 2018), and privacy helplessness (Cho, 2021). We follow this discussion with a contextualization of privacy cynicism within existing constraints that reduce user agency and foster privacy cynicism. The chapter concludes with a forward-looking agenda for future research on the topic that includes conceptual clarifications, the identification of salient antecedents and outcomes, contextually situated and comparative work, as well as studies into how to best address privacy cynicism from a top-down policy perspective or a bottom-up resistance and repair perspective.

Communications of the Association for Information Systems 52 p. 556-574

In recent years, the topic of algorithmic management has received increasing attention in information systems (IS) research and beyond. As both emerging platform businesses and established companies rely on artificial intelligence and sophisticated software to automate tasks previously done by managers, important organizational, social, and ethical questions emerge. However, a cross-disciplinary approach to algorithmic management that brings together IS perspectives with other (sub-)disciplines such as macro- and micro-organizational behavior, business ethics, and digital sociology is missing, despite its usefulness for IS research. This article engages in cross-disciplinary agenda setting through an in-depth report of a professional development workshop (PDW) entitled “Algorithmic Management: Toward a Cross-Disciplinary Research Agenda” delivered at the 2021 Academy of Management Annual Meeting. Three leading experts (Mareike Möhlmann, Lindsey Cameron, and Laura Lamers) on the topic provide their insights on the current status of algorithmic management research, how their work contributes to this area, where the field is heading in the future, and what important questions should be answered going forward. These accounts are followed up by insights from the breakout group discussions at the PDW that provided further input. Overall, the experts and workshop participants highlighted that future research should examine both the desirable and undesirable outcomes of algorithmic management and should not shy away from posing ethical and normative questions.

Regulation & Governance Doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.12568

The current political and regulatory discourse frequently references the term “trustworthy artificial intelligence (AI)”. In Europe, the attempts to ensure trustworthy AI started already with the High-Level Expert Group Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy AI and have now merged into the regulatory discourse on the EU AI Act. Around the globe, policymakers are actively pursuing initiatives—as the US Executive Order on Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy AI, or the Bletchley Declaration on AI showcase—based on the premise that the right regulatory strategy can shape trust in AI. To analyze the validity of this premise, we propose to consider the broader literature on trust in automation. On this basis, we constructed a framework to analyze 16 factors that impact trust in AI and automation more broadly. We analyze the interplay between these factors and disentangle them to determine the impact regulation can have on each. The article thus provides policymakers and legal scholars with a foundation to gauge different regulatory strategies, notably by differentiating between those strategies where regulation is more likely to also influence trust on AI (e.g., regulating the types of tasks that AI may fulfill) and those where its influence on trust is more limited (e.g., measures that increase awareness of complacency and automation biases). Our analysis underscores the critical role of nuanced regulation in shaping the human-automation relationship and offers a targeted approach to policymakers to debate how to streamline regulatory efforts for future AI governance.

New Media & Society 27(4) p. 2230-2252 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448231205892

Digital nomads (DNs) are highly mobile professionals who work while travelling and travel while working. Their lifestyle has gained increasing academic attention, also from a communication perspective. Despite initial work on the topic, little is known about the self-presentation practices of DNs on social media. To address this lack of evidence and focusing on Instagram as a key platform for this group, we adopt a Goffmanian perspective. By using semi-structured interviews, we provide an in-depth analysis of their self-presentational practices, specifically their content strategies, imagined audience and use of platform affordances. The interviews included photo elicitation as a central element. The findings show how DNs highlight independence and freedom, de-emphasize work in favour of leisure and travel, develop audience management strategies that are mindful of the imagined audiences’ situation, while trying to foster reliability and authenticity and greatly value the flexibility and ephemerality of the Stories feature.

Proceedings of the Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS) 56 p. 4628-4637

The term 'digital nomad' has gained popularity to describe professionals who work remotely from different locations facilitated by using information and communication technology. This study explores the interaction between digital nomadism and loneliness, digital nomads' coping mechanisms to fight loneliness (with a special focus on social media use), as well as the phenomenon of fear of missing out (FoMO). Digital nomads who often experience isolation may turn to the use of Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram to keep in contact with family and friends and other social media like Facebook groups, Slack, and MeetUp to meet new people. However, intensive use of social media can generate FoMO. By using 15 in-depth interviews, this paper aims to explore loneliness and FoMO as issues that might negatively intersect with digital nomads' wellbeing, thus spotlighting some of the hidden dark sides of digital nomadism that go too often unnoticed.

The SAGE Handbook of Human–Machine Communication p. 310-317

European Journal of Communication 38(4) p. 363-379 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/02673231221139040

Research on online political participation highlights how online platforms may facilitate or encumber political participation. In this contribution, we add to existing research on digital inequalities in online political participation by focusing on privacy concerns as a critical construct. We follow a contextual understanding on online privacy and examine a variety of online political behaviours to differentiate the distinctive roles privacy concerns play in higher and lower-threshold forms of participation. Based on a survey of German Internet users, we find that social media use exerts a strong positive effect on political participation, especially lower-threshold forms of participation. As privacy concerns are spread quite evenly throughout the population, they contribute little to the socioeconomic stratification of online political participation. Privacy concerns relate positively to higher-threshold forms of political participation. We discuss how higher- and lower-threshold participation constitute distinct contexts for users' considerations of privacy risks.

Peer-to-peer accommodation and community resilience : Implications for sustainable development p. 55-67

This study explores the perceived impacts of short-term rental (STRs) in the United Kingdom through a quantitative analysis. A 57-item questionnaire covering socio-cultural, economic, political, environmental, and technological impacts of STRs was distributed online among guests, hosts, and aware non-users. Apart from descriptive statistics, the data analysis encompassed a principal component analysis to explore the dimensionality of the perceived impacts and an ANOVA to assess differences in the community-related dimensions among the included groups. The results reveal that: a) STRs are perceived relatively ambivalently but slightly more positively than negatively; b) that Environmental Care, Urban Transformation, Social Capital and Lifestyle, Housing, Infrastructure and Events, and Antisocial Behavior and Crime are the key dimensions of perceived impact; and c) that more involved stakeholder groups, especially hosts but also guests and hosts, perceived the impacts of STRs most positively. We discuss the findings in light of community resilience literature.

Journal of Service Management (JOSM) 33(4-5) p. 688-704 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1108/JOSM-10-2021-0407

Purpose: Digital platform users not only consume but also produce communication related to their experiences. Although service research has explored users’ motivations to communicate and focused on outcomes such as electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM), it remains largely unexplored how users iteratively interact with communication artifacts and potentially create value for themselves, other users, and service providers. We thus introduce communicative affordances as a framework to advance user-created communication (UCC) in service. Design/methodology/approach: Drawing from the literature in communication, service research, and interactive marketing, we introduce an affordance perspective on UCC in service. Findings: We present three UCC affordances for the service context—interactivity, visibility, and anonymity—discuss opportunities and challenges for service providers associated with these affordances, and, finally, offer affordance-specific research questions and general recommendations for future research. Research limitations/implications: By conceptualizing UCC in service from an affordances perspective, this paper moves beyond the traditional sender–receiver communication framework and emphasizes opportunities and challenges for service research and practice. Practical implications: Instead of focusing separately on specific technologies or user behaviors, we recommend that service managers adopt a holistic perspective of user goals and motivations, use experiences, and platform design. Originality: By conceptualizing UCC as an augmenting, dialogical process concerning users experiences, and by introducing communicative affordances as a framework to advance UCC in service, we offer an in-depth understanding of the diverse and ever-evolving landscape of communication in service.

New Media & Society 26(7) p. 4008-4033 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448221108960

Self-branding is crucial for online freelancers as they must constantly differentiate themselves from competitors on online labor platforms to ensure a viable stream of income. By analyzing 39 interviews with freelancers and clients on the online labor platform Upwork, we identify five key self-branding strategies: boosting a profile, showcasing skills, expanding presence, maintaining relationships with clients, and individualizing brand. These self-branding strategies are contextualized within Goffman's dramaturgical theory and through an affordances lens, showing immanent tensions. While online freelancers successfully leverage self-branding to improve their visibility on Upwork and beyond, the client perspective reveals a fine line between too little and too much self-branding. Online freelancers must brand themselves in visibility games when the game rules are largely opaque, riddled with uncertainty, and constantly evolving. We connect the findings to adjacent platform economy research and derive a self-branding as a performance framework.

Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology 74(3) p. 303-310 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.24730

Artificial intelligence (AI) reconfigures work and organization, while work and organization shape AI. In this special issue, we explore these mutual transformations and how they play out across industries and occupations. We argue that, to truly appreciate this transformative power, the use of AI should be understood in relation to key dimensions of the work context. In this editorial, we discuss the sociotechnical dynamics of AI implementation, the research landscape of AI in the context of work, and key contextual factors on the macro- and micro-level that help understand the AI-work nexus. We then provide directions for future research at the intersection of work and AI.

Big Data & Society (BD&S) 9(2) Doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/20539517221142824

There is little consensus on what artificial intelligence (AI) systems may or may not embrace. While this may point to multiplicity of interpretations and backgrounds, a lack of conceptual clarity could thwart development of a common ground around the concept among researchers, practitioners and users of AI and pave the way for misinterpretation and abuse of the concept. This article argues that one of the effective ways to delineate the concept of AI is to compare and contrast it with human intelligence. In doing so, the article broaches unique capabilities of humans and AI in relation to one another (human and machine tacit knowledge), as well as two types of AI systems: one that goes beyond human intelligence and one that is necessarily and inherently tied to it. It finally highlights how humans and AI can augment their capabilities and intelligence through synergistic human-AI interactions (i.e., human-augmented AI and augmented human intelligence), resulting in hybrid intelligence, and concludes with a future-looking research agenda.

The SAGE Handbook of Social Media Research Methods p. 679-690

Inequalities in social media have been investigated under the umbrella of a digital divide. Research has shown how inequalities based on social categories are perpetuated or even reinforced with digital technologies. Different levels of inequality have been differentiated, including the first-level, second-level, and third-level digital divide. When it comes to social media, all these divides have received attention, but they have not been systematically connected to digital methods research, which relies on trace data, often from social media. This chapter discusses inequalities in social media access, use, and outcomes and connects them to digital methods research from an ethical perspective. It looks at two key issues for data subjects when data about them is analysed through digital methods: representation and privacy. Both issues are tied to questions of power and inequalities that merit careful attention among social media researchers. Beyond unequal representation and privacy among data subjects, the chapter also discusses inequalities within the research community, as they pertain to unequal access to social media data, unequal opportunities for digital methods skills development, and unequal opportunities to leverage digital methods analyses for career development. Overall, the chapter argues for a stronger connection of digital inequalities and digital methods.

Communications of the ACM 64(7) p. 72-79 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1145/3419405

As flexible work arrangements such as remote working or digital nomadism are normalized, the structure of work, performance expectations, and employee-employer relationships fundamentally change, presenting both benefits and risks for workers. Currently,the design and management of ICT systems for work is still geared towards ‘standard’ organizational settings and traditional forms of work. However, Personal Digital Infrastructures (PDIs) emerge as alternative sociotechnical infrastructures that can help workers realize the opportunities of flexible work while avoiding challenges of precarious work. Building on extensive empirical work, we present PDIs as consumerized, connective, adaptive, and temporally hybrid systems which reflect and reinforce multiple dimensions of flexibility: spatial, temporal, organizational, and technological. We provide implications on how the design and management of ICT systems for work can be made more amenable to the needs of flexible workers.

Paladyn - Journal of Behavioral Robotics 12(1) p. 423-436 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1515/pjbr-2021-0029

There is increasing attention given to the concept of trustworthiness for artificial intelligence and robotics. However, trust is highly context-dependent, varies among cultures, and requires reflection on others’ trustworthiness, appraising whether there is enough evidence to conclude that these agents deserve to be trusted. Moreover, little research exists on what happens when too much trust is placed in robots and autonomous systems. Conceptual clarity and a shared framework for approaching overtrust are missing. In this contribution, we offer an overview of pressing topics in the context of overtrust and robots and autonomous systems. Our review mobilizes insights solicited from in-depth conversations from a multidisciplinary workshop on the subject of trust in human-robot interaction, held at a leading robotics conference in 2020. A broad range of participants brought in their expertise, allowing formulation of a forward-looking research agenda on overtrust and automation biases in robotics and autonomous systems. Key points include the need for multidisciplinary understandings that are situated in an eco-system perspective, the consideration of adjacent concepts such as deception and anthropomorphization, a connection to ongoing legal discussions through the topic of liability and a socially embedded understanding of overtrust in education and literacy matters. The article integrates diverse literature and provides a ground for common understanding for overtrust in the context of human-robot interaction.

Frontiers in Robotics and AI Doi: https://doi.org/10.3389/frobt.2021.627958

While the privacy implications of social robots have been increasingly discussed and privacy-sensitive robotics is becoming a research field within human-robot interaction, little empirical research has investigated privacy concerns about robots and the effect they have on behavioral intentions. To address this gap, we present the results of an experimental vignette study that includes antecedents from the privacy, robotics, technology adoption, and trust literature. Using linear regression analysis, with the privacy-invasiveness of a fictional but realistic robot as the key manipulation, we show that privacy concerns affect use intention significantly and negatively. Compared to earlier work done through a survey, where we found a robot privacy paradox, the experimental vignette approach allows for a more realistic and tangible assessment of respondents’ concerns and behavioral intentions, showing how potential robot users take into account privacy as consideration for future behavior. We contextualize our findings within broader debates on privacy and data protection with smart technologies.

Becoming a Platform in Europe: On the Governance of the Collaborative Economy p. 35-58 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1561/9781680838411.ch3

The sharing economy is a relevant economic phenomenon of recent times and important for sustainable economic growth. This chapter considers the motivational factors that drive and hinder participation in the sharing economy. It investigates the impact of both economic or non-economic drivers and what role demographics, attitudinal and behavioural characteristics play as antecedents of those drivers. We rely on rich data from a 12-country survey to conduct our analysis, and we distinguish between three categories of respondents: providers, consumers and aware non-users. Trust, innovativeness and materialism are considered as important attitudinal antecedents, while volunteering is used as the key behavioural antecedent. We find that economic motives outperform noneconomic motives overall. However, compared with providers and aware non-users, consumers are more strongly driven by economic motives, especially those who are more educated and trusting. Additionally, younger, more educated, more innovative, materialistic and volunteering respondents are driven more than others by non-economic motives. Finally, providers with lower household income, who are more educated and innovative are more likely to be driven by economic motives, while providers that have more trust in people and volunteer more frequently are more likely to be driven by non-economic motives. Overall, the chapter contributes to a more differentiated understanding of participation in the sharing economy in terms of motives and their antecedents. We discuss theoretical and practical implications of the findings.

Information, Communication & Society online first Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2021.1989011

Algorithmic profiling has become increasingly prevalent in many social fields and practices, including finance, marketing, law, cultural consumption and production, and social engagement. Although researchers have begun to investigate algorithmic profiling from various perspectives, socio-technical studies of algorithmic profiling that consider users’ everyday perceptions are still scarce. In this article, we expand upon existing user-centered research and focus on people’s awareness and imaginaries of algorithmic profiling, specifically in the context of social media and targeted advertising. We conducted an online survey geared toward understanding how Facebook users react to and make sense of algorithmic profiling when it is made visible. The methodology relied on qualitative accounts as well as quantitative data from 292 Facebook users in the United States and their reactions to their algorithmically inferred ‘Your Interests’ and ‘Your Categories’ sections on Facebook. The results illustrate a broad set of reactions and rationales to Facebook’s (public-facing) algorithmic profiling, ranging from shock and surprise, to accounts of how superficial – and in some cases, inaccurate – the profiles were. Taken together with the increasing reliance on Facebook as critical social infrastructure, our study highlights a sense of algorithmic disillusionment requiring further research.

Data Protection and Privacy: Enforcing Rights in a Changing World p. 45-66

AI & Society: Knowledge, Culture and Communication 38(1) p. 133-152 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-021-01295-w

Policymakers need to start considering the impact smart connected toys (SCTs) have on children. Equipped with sensors, data processing capacities, and connectivity, SCTs targeting children increasingly penetrate pervasively personal environments. The network of SCTs forms the Internet of Toys (IoToys) and often increases children's engagement and playtime experience. Unfortunately, this young part of the population and, most of the time, their parents are often unaware of SCTs’ far-reaching capacities and limitations. The capabilities and constraints of SCTs create severe side effects at the technical, individual, and societal level. These side effects are often unforeseeable and unexpected. They arise from the technology's use and the interconnected nature of the IoToys, without necessarily involving malevolence from their creators. Although existing regulations and new ethical guidelines for Artificial Intelligence provide remedies to address some of the side effects, policymakers did not develop these redress mechanisms having children and SCTs in mind. This article provides an analysis of the arising side effects of SCTs and contrasts them with current regulatory redress mechanisms. We thereby highlight misfits and needs for further policy making efforts.

The Information Society 37(3) p. 147-162 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/01972243.2021.1897914

Over the last few years, smart speakers such as Amazon Echo and Google Home have become increasingly present within British households. Yet, privacy remains a prominent concern in the public discourse about smart speakers, as well as in the nascent academic literature. We argue that privacy in the context of smart speakers is more complex than in other settings due to smart speakers’ specific technological affordances and also the axial relationships between users, the device, device manufacturers, application developers, and other third parties such as moderation contractors and data brokers. With survey data from Amazon Echo and Google Home users in the UK, we explore users’ privacy concerns and privacy protection behaviors related to smart speakers. We rely on a contextual understanding of privacy, assessing the prevalence of seven distinct privacy concern types as well as three privacy protection behaviors. The results indicate that concerns about third parties, such as contractors listening to smart speaker recordings, are most pronounced. Privacy protection behaviors are uncommon but partly affected by privacy concerns and motives such as social presence and utilitarian benefits. Taken together, our research paints a picture of privacy pragmatism or privacy cynicism among smart speaker users.

Handbook of Digital Inequality p. 323-337

Digital inequalities research has investigated the question of who engages in online political participation, finding gaps along socioeconomic variables such as gender, age or education. Recent research has also highlighted how online platforms may facilitate or encumber political participation. Especially for multi-purpose platforms such as Facebook, where users are supposed to use their real names, issues of adequate self-presentation arise. The diversity of multiple audiences engenders privacy concerns, particularly when controversial political issues are at play. In this contribution, we add to existing research on digital inequalities in online political participation by focusing on privacy concerns as a critical construct. We use a survey of German Internet users to test the effect of privacy concerns on online political participation. Contrary to initial expectations, privacy concerns are found to increase political participation. As privacy concerns are spread quite evenly throughout the population, they contribute little to the socioeconomic stratification of online political participation. Social media use, however, exerts a strong positive effect on political participation, and differs significantly among socioeconomic segments of the population.

Emerging Transformations in Tourism and Hospitality p. 35-52 Doi: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003105930-4

Human-Machine Communication 1(1) p. 87-111 Doi: https://doi.org/10.30658/hmc.1.6

Conceptual research on robots and privacy has increased but we lack empirical evidence about the prevalence, antecedents, and outcomes of different privacy concerns about social robots. To fill this gap, we present a survey, testing a variety of antecedents from trust, technology adoption, and robotics scholarship. Respondents are most concerned about data protection on the manufacturer side, followed by social privacy concerns and physical concerns. Using structural equation modeling, we find a privacy paradox, where the perceived benefits of social robots override privacy concerns.

Social Media + Society 6(4) Doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305120978376

Parental sharing of child-related content on social network sites, termed “sharenting,” is often the target of criticism. Yet, through sharenting, parents can find support systems, a way to stay in touch with relevant others, and even an opportunity for additional income. This study contributes to knowledge on antecedents of sharenting. It explores the impact of parents’ privacy concerns on the sharing of child-related content, as well as on their general Instagram sharing. In this study, we differentiate between general and situational privacy. Moreover, we investigate whether parents’ privacy self-efficacy and the support of their peers influence parental sharing practices. Drawing on a rich body of literature on privacy and information sharing, we discuss the results of an online survey distributed among 320 Instagram users who are parents of children younger than 13 and reside in the United Kingdom. We find that parents’ privacy concerns are uncorrelated to sharenting and only situational concerns marginally correlate to parents’ general sharing. Parents’ reported privacy self-efficacy also did not play a role in parents’ sharing of either personal or children-related content. On the contrary, both Instagram sharing and having a network supportive of parental sharenting positively predict sharenting. Our results indicate that (a) neither situational nor general privacy concerns influence parents’ sharenting behavior, and (b) a parent’s supportive network and frequent sharing habits make frequent sharenting more likely.

International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management 32(10) p. 3177-3197 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCHM-08-2019-0733

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to contribute to current hospitality and tourism research on the sharing economy by studying the under-researched aspects of regulatory desirability, moral legitimacy, and fairness in the context of home-sharing platforms (e.g., Airbnb). Design/methodology/approach – Three separate 2x1 between-subjects experimental vignette surveys are used to test the effects of three types of fairness (procedural, interpersonal, informational) on two outcomes: moral legitimacy and regulatory desirability. Findings – The results of the research show that high perceived fairness across all three types increases moral legitimacy and reduces regulatory desirability. Respondents who perceive a fictional home-sharing platform to be fair consider it to be more legitimate and want it to be less regulated. Research limitations/implications – Following established practices and reducing external validity, the study uses a fictional scenario and a fictional company for the experimental vignette. The data collection took place in the United Kingdom, prohibiting cultural comparisons. Practical implications – The research is useful for home-sharing platform managers by showing how they can boost moral legitimacy and decrease regulatory desirability through a strong focus on fairness. It can also help policymakers and consumer protection advocates by providing evidence about regulatory desirability and how it is affected by fairness perceptions. Originality/value – The article adds to hospitality and tourism research by offering theoretically meaningful and practically relevant conclusions about the importance of fairness in driving stakeholder opinions about home-sharing platforms.

New Media & Society 22(7) p. 1168-1187 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444820912544

Ever since empirical studies found only a weak, if any, relationship between privacy concerns and privacy behavior, scholars have struggled to explain the so-called privacy paradox. Today, a number of theoretical arguments illuminate users’ privacy rationales, including the privacy calculus, privacy literacy and contextual differentiations. A recent approach focuses on user resignation, apathy or fatigue. In this piece, we concentrate on privacy cynicism, an attitude of uncertainty, powerlessness, mistrust and resignation towards data handling by online services, which renders privacy protection subjectively futile. We discuss privacy cynicism in the context of data capitalism, as a coping mechanism to address the tension between digital inclusion and a desire for privacy. Moreover, we introduce a measure for privacy cynicism and investigate the phenomenon based on a large-scale survey in Germany. The analysis highlights the multidimensionality of the construct, differentiating its relationships with privacy concerns, threat experience, Internet skills and protection behavior.

Theorizing the Sharing Economy: Variety and Trajectories of New Forms of Organizing p. 55-82 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1108/S0733-558X20200000066004

Independent actors operating through peer-to-peer sharing economy platforms co-create service experiences, such as shared car-rides or homestays. Emotional labor among both parties, manifested in the mutual enactment of socially desirable behavior, is essential in ensuring that these experiences are successful. However, little is known about emotional labor practices and about how sharing economy platforms enforce emotional labor practices among independent actors, such as guests, hosts, drivers, or passengers. To address this research gap, we follow a mixed methods approach. We combine survey research among Airbnb and Uber users with content analysis of seven leading sharing economy platforms. The findings show that (1) users perform emotional labor despite not seeing is as necessarily desirable and (2) platforms actively encourage the performance of emotional labor practices even in the absence of direct formal control. Emotional labor practices are encouraged through (hard) design features such as mutual ratings, reward systems, and gamification, as well as through more subtle (soft) normative framing of desirable practices via platform and app guidelines, tips, community sites, or blogs. Taken together, these findings expand our understanding of the limitations of peer-to-peer sharing platforms, where control over the service experience and quality can only be enforced indirectly.

Science and Engineering Ethics 26(6) p. 3333-3361 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-020-00276-4

In this article, we develop the concept of Transparency by Design that serves as practical guidance in helping promote the beneficial functions of transparency while mitigating its challenges in automated-decision making (ADM) environments. With the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and the ability of AI systems to make automated and self-learned decisions, a call for transparency of how such systems reach decisions has echoed within academic and policy circles. The term transparency, however, relates to multiple concepts, fulfills many functions, and holds different promises that struggle to be realized in concrete applications. Indeed, the complexity of transparency for ADM shows tension between transparency as a normative ideal and its translation to practical application. To address this tension, we first conduct a review of transparency, analyzing its challenges and limitations concerning automated decision-making practices. We then look at the lessons learned from the development of Privacy by Design, as a basis for developing the Transparency by Design principles. Finally, we propose a set of nine principles to cover relevant contextual, technical, informational, and stakeholder-sensitive considerations. Transparency by Design is a model that helps organizations design transparent AI systems, by integrating these principles in a step-by-step manner and as an ex-ante value, not as an afterthought.

Ekonomska Misao i Praksa 29(1) p. 79-99

The sharing economy is an emerging industry with potential for ensuring sustainable economic growth since it is based on underused resources. The aim of this study is to explore the impact of demographic characteristics (age, gender, education and income) and motives (financial benefits, fun, meeting people and social responsibility) on turning a sharing economy consumer into a provider. Descriptive and multivariate statistical analysis has been carried out on data from a large survey conducted in twelve European countries on the state of the sharing economy. The empirical results show that men and individuals under 35 years of age are more likely to participate in the sharing economy as providers. Moreover, consumers who are more driven by altruistic motives and less by financial benefits are more likely to offer their services as providers. This research can be useful to policy makers and managers in exploring the opportunities of supporting broader participation in offering services as providers in the sharing economy.

New Media & Society 23(6) p. 1341-1361 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444820901847

Online crowdwork platforms have been praised as powerful vehicles for economic development, particularly for workers traditionally excluded from the labor market. However, there has been insufficient scrutiny as to the feasibility of crowdwork as an income-source among socio-economically deprived populations. This paper examines device requirements and differential access to digital infrastructure, both of which act as potential barriers to not only basic participation but also to economic success online. Given the increasing prevalence of mobile-first and mobile-only populations, research on this topic aids in understanding the crowdwork ecosystem among differing socio-economic sectors. Based on a survey of 606 crowd workers across the United States and India, this paper uses both quantitative and qualitative data to explore whether reliance on mobile devices is detrimental for economic outcomes of crowdwork. The results point to substantial inequalities in device use and received benefits from crowdwork, within each country and between the two contexts.

Big Data & Society (BD&S) 7(2) p. 1-14 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/2053951720976680

The global Covid-19 pandemic has resulted in social and economic disruption unprecedented in the modern era. Many countries have introduced severe measures to contain the virus, including travel restrictions, public event bans, non-essential business closures, and remote work policies. While digital technologies help governments and organizations to enforce protection measures, such as contact tracing, their rushed deployment and adoption also raises profound concerns about surveillance, privacy, and data protection. This article presents two critical cases on digital surveillance technologies implemented during the Covid-19 pandemic and delineates the privacy implications thereof. We explain the contextual nature of privacy trade-offs during a pandemic and explore how regulatory and technical responses are needed to protect privacy in such circumstances. By providing a multi-disciplinary conversation on the value of privacy and data protection during a global pandemic, this article reflects on the implications digital solutions have for the future and raises the question of whether there is a way to have expedited privacy assessments that could anticipate and help mitigate adverse privacy implications these may have on society.

Mobile Media & Communication 7(3) p. 412-434 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/2050157919843961

In this contribution, we investigate the privacy implications of social robots, as an emerging mobile technology. Drawing on a scoping literature review and expert interviews, we show how social robots come with privacy implications that go beyond those of established mobile technology. Social robots challenge not only users’ informational privacy but also affect their physical, psychological, and social privacy due to their autonomy and potential for social bonding. These distinctive privacy challenges require study from varied theoretical perspectives, with contextual privacy and human-machine communication emerging as particularly fruitful lenses. Findings also point to an increasing focus on technological privacy solutions, complementing an evolving legal landscape as well as a strengthening of user agency and literacy.

International Journal of Social Robotics 12(2) p. 441-458 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12369-019-00605-z

Social robots, those that exhibit personality and communicate with us using high-level dialogue and natural cues, will soon be part of our daily lives. In this paper, we gather expert opinions from different international workshops exploring ethical, legal, and social (ELS) concerns associated with social robots. In contrast to literature that looks at specific challenges, often from a certain disciplinary angle, our contribution to the literature provides an overview of the ELS discussions in a holistic fashion, shaped by active deliberation with a multitude of experts across four workshops held between 2015 and 2017 in major international workshops (ERF, NewFriends, JSAI-isAI). It also explores pathways to address the identified challenges. Our contribution is in line with the latest European robot regulatory initiatives but covers an area of research that the latest AI and robot governance strategies have scarcely covered. Specifically, we highlight challenges to the use of social robots from a user perspective, including issues such as privacy, autonomy, and the dehumanization of interactions; or from a worker perspective, including issues such as the possible replacement of jobs through robots. The paper also compiles the recommendations to these ELS issues the experts deem appropriate to mitigate compounding risks. By then contrasting these challenges and solutions with recent AI and robot regulatory strategies, we hope to inform the policy debate and set the scene for further research.

Internet Research 29(5) p. 1090-1108 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1108/INTR-03-2018-0134

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore how rating mechanisms encourage emotional labor norms among sharing economy consumers. Design/methodology/approach – This study follows a mixed-methods research design. Survey data from 207 consumers were used to quantify the impact of three distinct rating dimensions on a consumer behavioral outcome (emotional labor). In the second step, 18 focus groups with 94 participants were used to investigate the conditioning functions of ratings in more depth. Findings – Rating mechanisms condition consumers toward performing socially desirable behaviors during sharing transactions. While consumers accept the necessity of bilateral rating mechanisms, they also recognize their coercive nature. Furthermore, the presence of bilateral rating mechanisms leads to negative outcomes such as annoyance and frustration. Originality/value – This study contributes to sharing economy literature by examining bilateral rating mechanisms as a means of behavioral conditioning for consumers. This study points to improvements in platform design and informs theory on tripartite markets as well as trust.

Law & Ethics of Human Rights 13(1) p. 97-114 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1515/lehr-2019-0004

In this article, we explore the practices of extensive data collection among sharing economy platforms, highlighting how the unknown future value of big data creates an ethical problem for a fair exchange relationship between companies and users. Specifically, we present a typology with four scenarios related to the future value of data. In the remainder of the article, we first describe the status quo of data collection practices in the sharing economy, followed by a discussion of the value-generating affordances of big data. We then introduce the typology of four scenarios for the future value of data. Finally, the paper concludes with a short discussion on the implications of information asymmetries for a fair exchange process.

Computer Law and Security Review 36(April) p. 1-15 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clsr.2019.105367

In this article, we provide an overview of the literature on chilling effects and corporate profiling, while also connecting the two topics. We start by explaining how profiling, in an increasingly data-rich environment, creates substantial power asymmetries between users and platforms (and corporations more broadly). Inferences and the increasingly automated nature of decision-making, both based on user data, are essential aspects of profiling. We then connect chilling effects theory and the relevant empirical findings to corporate profiling. In this article, we first stress the relationship and similarities between profiling and surveillance. Second, we describe chilling effects as a result of state and peer surveillance, specifically. We then show the interrelatedness of corporate and state profiling, and finally spotlight the customization of behavior and behavioral manipulation as particularly significant issues in this discourse. This is complemented with an exploration of the legal foundations of profiling through an analysis of European and US data protection law. We find that while Europe has a clear regulatory framework in place for profiling, the US primarily relies on a patchwork of sector-specific or state laws. Further, there is an attempt to regulate differential impacts of profiling via anti-discrimination statutes, yet few policies focus on combating generalized harms of profiling, such as chilling effects. Finally, we devise four concise propositions to guide future research on the connection between corporate profiling and chilling effects.

Advanced Robotics and its Social Impacts (ARSO) p. 77-84 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1109/ARSO.2018.8625758

Privacy is crucial for healthy relationships, but robots will impact our privacy in new ways—this warrants a new area of research. This paper presents work from the first workshop on privacy-sensitive robotics. We identify the seven research themes that should comprise privacy-sensitive robotics research in the near future: data privacy; manipulation and deception; trust; blame and transparency; legal issues; domains with special privacy concerns; and privacy theory. We intend for the research directions proposed for each of these themes to serve as a roadmap for privacy-sensitive robotics research.

Human Behavior and Emerging Technologies 1(2) p. 141-148 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1002/hbe2.140

In this literature review, I summarize key concepts and findings from the rich academic literature on digital inequalities. I propose that digital inequalities research should look more into labor- and big data-related questions such as inequalities in online labor markets and the negative effects of algorithmic decision-making for vulnerable population groups. The article engages with the sociological literature on digital inequalities and explains the general approach to digital inequalities, based on the distinction of first-, second-, and third-level digital divides. First, inequalities in access to digital technologies are discussed. This discussion is extended to emerging technologies, including the Internet-of-things and AI-powered systems such as smart speakers. Second, inequalities in digital skills and technology use are reviewed and connected to the discourse on new forms of work such as the sharing economy or gig economy. Third and finally, the discourse on the outcomes, in the form of benefits or harms, from digital technology use are is taken up. Here, I propose to integrate the digital inequalities literature more strongly with critical algorithm studies and recent discussions about datafication, digital footprints, and information privacy.

Journal of Managerial Psychology 34(4) p. 307-324 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1108/JMP-06-2018-0265

Purpose: Online gig labor platforms bring together a global and fast-growing workforce to complete highly granular, remote and decontextualized tasks. While these environments might be empowering to some workers, many others feel disenfranchised and removed from the final product of their labor. To better understand the antecedents of continued participation in forms of crowdsourced digital labor, we explore the relationship between worker’s ability to create a narrative of their work mattering regardless, and their continued work engagement in these work setups. Design: We approach the relationship between individual mattering and digital work engagement through a longitudinal study among workers on the crowdworking platform Amazon Mechanical Turk. We further provide qualitative insight into individual perceptions of mattering based on essay data. Findings: We develop a measure of mattering in crowdworking with four dimensions: reliance, social recognition, importance, and interaction. Reliance is the most pronounced dimension, followed by interaction, importance and social recognition. In the final longitudinal model, only importance affects work engagement positively, while the other three mattering dimension do not have a significant effect. Originality: The findings indicate that individuals who feel that they themselves and their work ‘count’ and ‘make a difference’ will be more engaged in their digital labor. By clarifying the dimensionality of mattering in crowdwork and studying its differentiated effect on work engagement, the paper makes a contribution to research on crowdwork and the future of work. Beyond the theoretical contributions, the finding that perceived importance fosters work engagement has important implications for task and platform design.

Policy & Internet 13(1) p. 6-29 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1002/poi3.225

Scholarship on political participation and the Internet has found that Internet use may foster both online and offline political participation, while also finding pronounced inequalities in online political participation based on demographic and psychological characteristics. The article advances our theoretical understanding of how inequalities in online and offline political participation emerge through cognitive pathways, by applying social cognitive theory to conceptualize the relationship between environmental influences, cognition and behavior. Using survey data from 1,488 Internet users in Germany, we investigate how the cognitive dispositions of social media self‐efficacy and online privacy concerns mediate the effect of socio‐demographics on Internet use, and online as well as offline political participation. Results indicate that younger citizens are more likely to engage in online political participation, while older, more educated, and male citizens are more likely to engage in offline political participation. Internet use is positively associated with online political participation, which is closely related to offline participation. Self‐efficacy fully mediates the effect of education and gender on Internet use and online political participation. Thus, Internet use simultaneously amplifies and mitigates pre‐existing participation divides, depending on users’ cognitive dispositions.

Big Data & Society (BD&S) 6(1) p. 1-14 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/2053951719860542

Transparency is now a fundamental principle for data processing under the General Data Protection Regulation. We explore what this requirement entails for artificial intelligence and automated decision-making systems. We address the topic of transparency in artificial intelligence by integrating legal, social, and ethical aspects. We first investigate the ratio legis of the transparency requirement in the General Data Protection Regulation and its ethical underpinnings, showing its focus on the provision of information and explanation. We then discuss the pitfalls with respect to this requirement by focusing on the significance of contextual and performative factors in the implementation of transparency. We show that human–computer interaction and human-robot interaction literature do not provide clear results with respect to the benefits of transparency for users of artificial intelligence technologies due to the impact of a wide range of contextual factors, including performative aspects. We conclude by integrating the information- and explanation-based approach to transparency with the critical contextual approach, proposing that transparency as required by the General Data Protection Regulation in itself may be insufficient to achieve the positive goals associated with transparency. Instead, we propose to understand transparency relationally, where information provision is conceptualized as communication between technology providers and users, and where assessments of trustworthiness based on contextual factors mediate the value of transparency communications. This relational concept of transparency points to future research directions for the study of transparency in artificial intelligence systems and should be taken into account in policymaking.

IEEE robotics & automation magazine 26(2) p. 71-78 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1109/MRA.2019.2904644

Transparency is often seen as a means to provide accountability and show that something is done with due diligence. This approach to transparency regards it as a remedy to hidden (potentially malevolent) practices. We, therefore, require transparency from manufacturers of products and services. While the outcry for more transparency often occurs in response to a particular scandal (e.g., the various controversies surrounding Facebook in 2018), the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) includes transparency as a proactive requirement for information technologies that process personal data.

First Monday 23(11) p. 1-14 Doi: https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v23i11.8159

With the future of work increasingly data-driven, platforms automate decisions based on the collection of vast quantities of user data. However, non-users constitute a challenge as they provide little to no data for either platforms or other users. We focus on a category of (non-)users that has not received any attention in research: users-by-proxy. Users-by-proxy make use of sharing services but they are not themselves part of the sharing transaction. Platforms cannot analyze their behavior to tailor services or allocate labor most effectively. Users-by-proxy also have significant implications for trust and reputation mechanisms. In this conceptual contribution, we provide a definition of users-by-proxy as a third category between users and non-users, developing a typology of users-by-proxy based on motives of non-/use. We focus on the ramifications of users-by-proxy for the future of work and their significance for the limits of data-driven decision making.

New technology, work and employment 33(3) p. 250-267 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/ntwe.12119

Conditions in the sharing economy are often favourably designed for consumers and platforms but entail new challenges for the labour side, such as substandard social-security and rigid forms of algorithmic management. Since comparatively little is known about how providers in the sharing economy make their voices heard collectively, we investigate their opinions and behaviours regarding collective action and perceived solidarities. Using cluster analysis on representative data from across twelve European countries, we determine five distinct types of labour-activists, ranging from those opposed to any forms of collective action to those enthusiastic to organise and correct perceived wrongs. We conclude by conjecturing that the still-ongoing influx of new providers, the difficulty of organising in purely virtual settings, combined with the narrative of voluntariness of participation and hedonic gratifications might be responsible for the inaction of large parts of the provider base in collectivist activities.

Journal of Business Research 88 p. 187-196 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2018.03.019

The sharing economy is a global phenomenon with rapid growth potential. While research has begun to explore segmentation between users and non-users, only limited research has looked at consumer segmentation within sharing economy services. In this paper, we build on this research gap by investigating consumer segmentation within a single sharing economy platform: Airbnb. Utilizing a mixed methods approach, with both a quantitative survey and a qualitative content analysis of Airbnb listings, we compare two different types of accommodation offered on Airbnb: shared room and entire home. Our findings indicate that within a single platform, the variety between offerings can create distinct consumer segments based on both demographics and behavioral criteria. We also find that Airbnb hosts use marketing logic to target their listings towards specific consumer segments. However, there is not, in all cases, strong alignment between consumer segmentation and host targeting, leading to potentially reduced matching efficiency.

Social science computer review 36(5) p. 632-643 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/0894439317721181

The reliable assessment of individual faculty members’ contributions is a key challenge in the governance of research institutions. Traditionally, scientific impact is estimated based on bibliographic analyses. With online platforms, particularly social media, gaining popularity among academics, new opportunities for the analysis of scientific impact arise. Proponents of the “altmetrics” approach hold that both general purpose social media and services tailored to the scientific community allow for a range of usage metrics that may inform scientific impact assessment. We propose that relational analyses of social media platforms may shed new light on these understudied dimensions of scientific impact and may enrich assessment efforts. Based on a sample of Swiss management scholars’ active on ResearchGate, we conduct a social network analysis, derive relational metrics, and correlate these metrics with bibliometrics, webometrics, and altmetrics to gauge their potential to inform scientific impact assessment, specifically in business and management research.

Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society 16(3) p. 242-251 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1108/JICES-02-2018-0014

Purpose: This conceptual contribution is based on the observation that digital inequalities literature has not sufficiently considered digital footprints as an important social differentiator. Design/methodology/approach: Literature on digital inequalities is combined with research on privacy, big data, and algorithms. The focus on current findings from an interdisciplinary point-of-view allows for a synthesis of different perspectives and conceptual development of digital footprints as a new dimension of digital inequality. Findings: Digital footprints originate from active content creation, passive participation, and platform-generated data. The literature review shows how different social groups may experience systematic advantages or disadvantages based on their digital footprints. A special emphasis should be on those at the margins, for example users of low socioeconomic background. Originality/value: By combining largely independent research fields, the contribution opens new avenues for studying digital inequalities, including innovative methodologies to do so.

Human-Machine Communication: Rethinking Communication, Technology, and Ourselves p. 145-165

Proceedings of the Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS) p. 636-645 Doi: https://doi.org/10.24251/HICSS.2018.081

The peer-to-peer nature of the sharing economy encourages participants to alter their behavior in ways that resemble traditional notions of emotional labor. A key element in this shift lies in the coercive nature of feedback mechanisms which condition both providers and consumers to perform emotional labor during service encounters. Using survey data from 207 sharing economy consumers in the US, we show how different facets of the feedback mechanisms employed by sharing economy services influence consumers’ emotional labor. In addition, we show how platforms and their policies matter in encouraging emotional labor, indicating the need to analyze the topic on a fine-grained level. We conclude by deriving propositions for future research and practical recommendations.

Academy of Management Discoveries 4(3) p. 294-313 Doi: https://doi.org/10.5465/amd.2016.0161

Based on a qualitative interview-study as well as on a quantitative survey among users of the room sharing platform Airbnb, we show that situational closeness between sharing economy consumers and providers may prompt instances of interpersonal contamination which in turn negatively impact reviewer behaviour and intention to engage in room sharing in the future. However, we also show that authenticity plays a significant alleviating role in shaping such closeness perceptions. Users whose sense of authenticity is evoked in their sharing experiences are significantly less bothered by negative instances of interpersonal closeness and are thus more liable to use sharing services. Our results point to the integral nature of both authenticity and the invocation of notions of authenticity for sharing business models who are reliant, by their very nature, on alleviating the imperfections of amateur production.

Computers in Human Behavior 81 p. 102-114 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2017.12.006

An increasing number of people are tracking their fitness activities, work performance and leisure experiences using body sensors (e.g., wrist-bands or smart watches) and mobile applications. This trend, referred to as self-quantification, is driven by various motivations, from curiosity to a desire to improve performance. As self-quantification by means of digital devices is a new behavioural trend, the phenomenon has only recently received academic attention. Neither antecedents nor the implications of this phenomenon have been thoroughly investigated. This paper aims to address these gaps. Based on the literature on selfquantification, privacy and self-disclosure, we empirically test the relationship among personality traits, privacy, self-quantification and self-disclosure. The findings suggest that conscientiousness and emotional stability are associated with self-quantification. In addition, we find a significant effect of self-quantification on self-disclosure in the survey context, indicating that individuals who habitually use self-tracking applications and wearable devices are also more likely to disclose personal data in other contexts.

American Behavioral Scientist 61(7) p. 741-756 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764217717559

Sociological studies show that Internet access, skills, uses, and outcomes vary between different population segments. However, we lack differentiated statistical evidence of the social characteristics of users of distinct social media platforms. We address this issue using a representative survey of Great Britain and investigate the social characteristics of six major social media platforms. We find that age and socioeconomic status are driving forces of several—but not all—of these platforms. The findings suggest that no social media platform is representative of the general population. The unrepresentativeness has major implications for research that uses social media as a data source. Social media data cannot be used to generalize to any population other than themselves.

Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology 68(7) p. 1698-1710 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.23771

Critics worry that algorithmic filtering could lead to overly polished, homogeneous web experiences. “Serendipity,” in turn, has been touted as an antidote. Yet, the desirability of serendipity could vary by context, as users may be more or less receptive depending on the services they employ. We propose a nomological model of online serendipity experiences, conceptualizing both cognitive and behavioral antecedents. Based on a survey of 1,173 German Internet users, we conduct structural equation modeling and multigroup analyses to differentiate the antecedents and effects of serendipity across three distinct contexts: online shopping, information services, and social networking sites. Our findings confirm that antecedents and outcomes of digital serendipity vary by context, with serendipity only being associated with user satisfaction in the context of social network sites.

Mobile Media & Communication 5(1) p. 80-101 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/2050157916664559

The emergence of Location-Based-Real-Time-Dating (LBRTD) apps such as Tinder has introduced a new way for users to get to know potential partners nearby. The design of the apps represents a departure from “old-school” dating sites as it relies on the affordances of mobile media. This might change the way individuals portray themselves as their authentic or deceptive self. Based on survey data collected via Mechanical Turk and using structural equation modeling, we assess how Tinder users present themselves, exploring at the same time the impact of their personality characteristics, their demographics and their motives of use. We find that self-esteem is the most important psychological predictor, fostering real self-presentation but decreasing deceptive self-presentation. The motives of use – hooking up/sex, friendship, relationship, traveling, self-validation, and entertainment – also affect the two forms of self-presentation. Demographic characteristics and psychological antecedents influence the motives for using Tinder, with gender differences being especially pronounced. Women use Tinder more for friendship and self-validation, while men use it more for hooking up/sex, traveling and relationship seeking. We put the findings into context, discuss the limitations of our approach and provide avenues for future research into the topic.

Information, Communication & Society 20(6) p. 876-897 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2017.1293129

Studies on the “second-level digital divide” explore the socio-economic antecedents and effects of (a lack of) user participation on the Internet. At the same time, some have criticized a normatively affirmative bias in online participation research as well as a one-sided focus on observable user activity. This contribution addresses the ensuing call for a more nuanced understanding of online participation in general, and online political participation in particular. We differentiate the online participation concept based on a focus group study among 96 Internet users from a broad range of social backgrounds in Germany. We derive a framework of eight types of online (non-)participation along three conceptual axes: activity, agency and social valence. Taking user experiences and terminology into account, we differentiate participation from non-participation, active from passive and positive from negative (non-)participation. The proposed typology allows for a more balanced evaluation and more focused exploration of phenomena such as destructive or involuntary online participation as well as online abstention, boycotts, self-censorship, lurking or digital exclusion.

Information, Communication & Society 21(10) p. 1472-1492 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2017.1339726

Internet-mediated sharing is growing quickly. Millions of users around the world share personal services and possessions with others—often complete strangers. Shared goods can amount to substantial financial and immaterial value. Despite this, little research has investigated privacy in the sharing economy. To fill this gap, we examine the sharing-privacy nexus by exploring the privacy threats associated with Internet-mediated sharing. Given the popularity of sharing services, users seem quite willing to share goods and services despite the compounded informational and physical privacy threats associated with such sharing. We develop and test a framework for analyzing the effect of privacy concerns on sharing that considers institutional and social privacy threats, trust and social-hedonic as well as monetary motives.

Social Media + Society 3(1) p. 1-12 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305117697735

The widespread diffusion of location-based real-time dating or mobile dating apps, such as Tinder and Grindr, is changing dating practices. The affordances of these dating apps differ from those of “old school” dating sites, for example, by privileging picture-based selection, minimizing room for textual self-description, and drawing upon existing Facebook profile data. They might also affect users’ privacy perceptions as these services are location based and often include personal conversations and data. Based on a survey collected via Mechanical Turk, we assess how Tinder users perceive privacy concerns. We find that the users are more concerned about institutional privacy than social privacy. Moreover, different motivations for using Tinder—hooking up, relationship, friendship, travel, self-validation, and entertainment—affect social privacy concerns more strongly than institutional concerns. Finally, loneliness significantly increases users’ social and institutional privacy concerns, while narcissism decreases them.

Social Media + Society 2(1) p. 1-14 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305115626749

Research on digital divides has been helpful in advancing our understanding of the social structuration of Internet access, motivations to go online, digital skills, and Internet (non-)use, including participatory uses. However, digital divide research has been criticized for oversimplifying the relationship between demographic characteristics and Internet use and for its under-theorization. A social milieu approach, inspired by Pierre Bourdieu’s sociological theory, presents an excellent set of concepts to address these criticisms and thus advance digital divide research. This article uses the social milieu approach for an empirical investigation of the participation divides in Germany. Focus groups and online communities with 96 participants from seven distinct Internet milieus serve to differentiate online participation along social lines. The results show that German citizens are strongly segregated into distinct Internet milieus that differ in their intensity, variety, understanding and attitudes towards online participation. Each milieu displays specific participatory patterns and some of the findings challenge existing research on digital and participation divides. Implications are derived and limitations of the approach carved out.

New Media & Society 20(2) p. 618-640 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444816667135

Recent studies have enhanced our understanding of digital divides by investigating outcomes of Internet use. We extend this research to analyse positive and negative outcomes of Internet use in the United Kingdom. We apply structural equation modelling to data from a large Internet survey to compare the social structuration of Internet benefits with harms. We find that highly educated users benefit most from using the web. Elderly individuals benefit more than younger ones. Next to demographic characteristics, technology attitudes are the strongest predictors of online benefits. The harms from using the Internet are structured differently, with educated users and those with high levels of privacy concerns being most susceptible to harm. This runs counter to intuitions based on prior digital divide research, where those at the margins should be most at risk. While previous research on digital inequality has only looked at benefits, the inclusion of harms draws a more differentiated picture.

ex ante 1(2) p. 49-56 Doi: https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3319831

Computers in Human Behavior 62 p. 316-326 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2016.04.002

In this contribution, we scrutinize the diverse motives for internet-mediated sharing as well as their role in shaping attitudes towards sharing one's possessions in commercialized as well as non-commercialized settings. On the basis of qualitative and quantitative research, we first develop a scale of sharing motives, showing that the reasons for participating in online sharing platforms are more nuanced than previously thought. Second, employing a motivational model of sharing, rooted in the theory of planned behavior, we show that sharing attitudes are driven by moral, social-hedonic and monetary motivations. Furthermore, we identify materialism, sociability and volunteering as predictors of sharing motives in different sharing contexts. Against this background, we explore the possible role of monetary incentives as a necessary but not sufficient condition for sharing one's possessions with others

Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace 10(4) Doi: https://doi.org/10.5817/CP2016-4-7

Privacy concerns among Internet users are consistently found to be high. At the same time, these concerns do not appear to generate a corresponding wave of privacy protection behavior. A number of studies have addressed the apparent divergence between users’ privacy concerns and behavior, with results varying according to context. Previous research has examined user trust, lack of risk awareness and the privacy calculus as potential solutions to the “privacy paradox”. Complementing these perspectives, we propose that some users faced with seemingly overwhelming privacy threats develop an attitude of “privacy cynicism”, leading to a resigned neglect of protection behavior. Privacy cynicism serves as a cognitive coping mechanism, allowing users to rationalize taking advantage of online services despite serious privacy concerns. We conduct an interdisciplinary literature review to define the core concept, then empirically substantiate it based on qualitative data collected among German Internet users.

Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology 67(4) p. 765-775 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.23423

Social media are becoming increasingly popular in scientific communication. A range of platforms, such as academic social networking sites (SNS), are geared specifically towards the academic community. Proponents of the altmetrics approach have pointed out that new media allow for new avenues of scientific impact assessment. Traditional impact measures based on bibliographic analysis have long been criticized for overlooking the relational dynamics of scientific impact. We therefore propose an application of social network analysis to researchers' interactions on an academic social networking site to generate potential new metrics of scientific impact. Based on a case study conducted among a sample of Swiss management scholars, we analyze how centrality measures derived from the participants' interactions on the academic SNS ResearchGate relate to traditional, offline impact indicators. We find that platform engagement, seniority, and publication impact contribute to members' indegree and eigenvector centrality on the platform, but less so to closeness or betweenness centrality. We conclude that a relational approach based on social network analyses of academic SNS, while subject to platform-specific dynamics, may add richness and differentiation to scientific impact assessment.

International Journal of Communication 9 p. 1360-1381

Information, Communication & Society 18(6) p. 696-716 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2014.991343

Journal of Public Affairs 15(2) p. 163-174 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1535

First Monday 19(7) Doi: https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v19i7.5260

Journal of Management Information Systems 31(3) p. 138-171 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/07421222.2014.995538

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Purpose Technostress and information overload are serious challenges of the information age. An alarming number of people exhibit dangerously intensive media consumption, while Internet and mobile phone addictions are a widespread phenomenon. At the same time, new media overexposure among young people is understudied, even more so when social network sites are concerned. Methodology/approach This study explores how feelings of overexposure and stress relate to the self-expressive needs of teenagers. It presents and discusses the results of a large-scale survey conducted during an exhibition on media overload in Switzerland. A total of 6,989 adolescents provided answers on their media overload and stress. Descriptive statistics and logistic regression were used to quantify the influence of demographic characteristics on social network site related stress. Findings While only a minority of 13 percent of respondents feels stressed by social network sites, more than one third has the feeling of spending too much time on such platforms. Age, gender, and language background (French vs. German speaking) shape the overload propensity, with older, male and French-speaking teenagers most at risk for social network site stress. Social implications The study proposes that social divides exist in teenagers’ ability to cope with a specific affordance of social network sites, namely their constant status updates and potential of overexposure. Furthermore, it reflects upon the relation between identity performance and stress. Originality of chapter The chapter is one of the first to investigate social network site overload with a broad sample approach, quantifying antecedents of the phenomenon.