| This research examined the growing problem of information privacy and its variation by age group as revealed in consumer surveys in the United States. Understanding this variation informs the current philosophical, legal, and technological debates about information privacy. Privacy issues studied were general concern about privacy, experiences of privacy invasion, and feelings of control over collection and use of personal information. The researcher examined age, period, and cohort effects as well as gender, class, race, region, and size of place demographics. A grounded theory study used purposive sampling of four generational groups. Data were collected using e-mail interviews and analyzed using open, axial, and selective coding techniques. This was paired with a cohort analysis of 16,101 Louis Harris privacy survey respondents from 1983 to 2003 using linear regression, equality of proportions, and chi-squared analyses. The key research finding was that generational consciousness is a significant influence on consumer's attitudes and behaviors related to information privacy. This finding led to specific recommendations for governments, businesses, and technologists to empower the individual consumer to better control his or her own personal information. The research produced a model and process useful for the study of generational consciousness which can be applied generally to research focused on understanding social change. |
