The Online Privacy and Engagement Model: Measuring People’s Attitudes Toward, and Willingness to Use, Casual and Non-Casual Online Digital Technologies

Researchers have developed domain-specific measures of behaviors and attitudes toward online digital technologies, identifying factors (e.g., privacy concerns, disclosure of information, perceived privacy control, trust) and demographic characteristics (age and gender) that influence the adoption of such technologies. In contrast, we developed the Online Privacy and Engagement Model (OPEM), which captures attitudes and behaviors regarding privacy and engagement across casual (e.g., social network) and non-casual (e.g., e-government) online digital technologies. The results revealed that OPEM predicted participants’ willingness to use casual and non-casual online digital technologies. Participants reported greater willingness to use non-casual than casual online digital technologies, and OPEM predicted this difference. Age was negatively associated with willingness to use casual online digital technologies and disassociated with willingness to use non-casual online digital technologies. Overall, our research provides evidence for domain-general privacy and engagement factors (OPEM) that inform people’s willingness to use online digital casual and non-casual technologies.