“The value of privacy is not as high as finding my person” — Privacy risks as abstractions

Online dating has emerged as a key platform for digital engagement among young people, serving as a common medium for building relationships. As multimedia platforms, dating apps encourage users to translate their notions of identity construction, self-expression, and communication into engagement and participation in the digital world. Dating apps are one of several technologies that are changing existing norms of relationship building, self-presentation, and ideals of romance. Dating apps foster a unique form of engagement because to facilitate a date users must reveal sensitive details about their demographics, location, values, and lifestyle that they might not otherwise display on social media. On dating apps privacy concerns are unusually self-conscious. This unique digital environment constitutes a strategic research site where research can explore how privacy concerns influence the process of personal information (PI) disclosure. Findings reveal that users perceive other users as threats to their privacy, which makes them carefully consider what they reveal. In contrast, risks associated with app providers, such as selling data to advertisers, are viewed as abstract, and not behavior-altering. This discrepancy in risk is attributed to inadequate data literacy and agency over personal data. This paper concludes with suggestions for future research and policy that would improve the quality of youth engagement.