Media Effects Research Lab - Research Archive
First Impression Is Everything: Interactivity and Privacy in the App Sign-up Journey
Student Researcher(s)
Yongnam Jung (Ph.D Candidate);
Jiaqi (Agnes) Bao (Ph.D Candidate);
Megan Norman (Ph.D Candidate);
Faculty Supervisor
(This paper was based on a project as part of the C517: Psychological Aspects of Communication Technology course.)
INTRODUCTION
Mobile apps have become a ubiquitous part of many media users’ lives with about 85% of Americans owning a smartphone (Pew Research Center, 2021). However, many app users may face privacy concerns when deciding which apps to download (Anderson, 2015). This study investigates the role of message interactivity in a common user experience: setting up a new mobile fitness app to receive customized personal services, while weighing the privacy risks of personal information disclosure.
RESEARCH QUESTION / HYPOTHESES
Given the tradeoff between privacy concerns and receiving personalized services in mobile apps, our research asks (RQ1): For new fitness app users, controlling for power usage, what is the relationship between message interactivity on users’ attitude toward the app and intention to use the app mediated through privacy concern and perceived benefit? We hypothesize that greater levels of message interactivity will lead to (H1) greater levels of elaboration, (H2a) greater levels of elaboration created by message interactivity will lead to greater levels of privacy concerns, and (H2b) greater levels of perceived benefits, and (H3) greater levels of cognitive absorption, leading to greater levels of perceived benefit. Furthermore, we hypothesize that (H4) privacy literacy will moderate the relationship of message interactivity on intention to use the app via elaboration and perceived risk, and (H5) issue involvement will moderate the relationship of message interactivity on (a) attitude toward the app and (b) intention to use the app via elaboration and perceived benefits (Figure 1).
METHOD
In a scenario-based, between-subjects online experiment, we manipulated three levels of message interactivity through an interactive dialog with a chatbot to simulate setting up a new mobile fitness app (Figure 2). Participants were recruited from MTurk and routed to the Qualtrics survey, where they engaged with the chatbot. We then measured their elaboration and cognitive absorption as initial mediators to see how each affects perceived benefit and privacy concerns in a two-step mediation to ultimately impact users’ attitudes toward the app and intentions to use the app. Privacy literacy and issue involvement were measured as moderators. Power usage was measured as a covariate and statistical analyses used MANCOVA and ANCOVAS through SPSS v. 28. PROCESS Macro was used for mediation analyses (Hayes, 2017).
RESULTS
Participants were randomly assigned to one of the three interactivity conditions (low, N=57; medium, N=59; or high, N=60; total N=176). Participants on average reported a high issue involvement (M=6.19, SD=1.09), high privacy literacy (M=5.29, SD=1.00), and high-power usage (M=5.29, SD=1.00) on the 7-pt scales. The multivariate main effect for message interactivity showed no significant findings on the outcome variables specified in RQ1, Wilks’ λ = .91, F (12, 334) = 1.30, p =.22, partial η2 = .04. Mediation analysis did not support H2a, H2b, or H3, and we found no significant findings on the moderating effects of privacy literacy on elaboration (H4). However, we found a significant moderating effect for issue involvement (H5), such that medium levels of message interactivity had a positive effect on attitude and intentions to use the app via message elaboration and perceived benefits for users with medium and high issue involvement (i.e., interest in health).
CONCLUSIONS/DISCUSSION
Through a scenario-based design, we found that medium and high issue involvement significantly moderate users’ perceived benefits of an app. These perceived benefits can affect users’ attitudes toward and intentions to use an app. We believe that high message interactivity may have backfired through the overly repetitious nature of the high interactivity condition stimuli, supported through some qualitative feedback. Thus, issue involvement and optimal levels of message interactivity should be considered carefully by app designers, as they seek to develop apps that may help engage low-involvement users (i.e., users who are not yet very interested in health), and also honor and acknowledge the privacy concerns of users.
REFERENCES:
Anderson, M. (2015, November 10). Mobile apps, privacy and permissions: 5 key takeaways. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/11/10/key-takeaways-mobile-apps/
Hayes, A. F. (2017). Introduction to mediation, moderation, and conditional process analysis: A regression-based approach. Guilford publications.
Pew Research Center. (2021, April 7). Mobile Fact Sheet. Research Topics. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/mobile/
For more details regarding the study contact
Dr. S. Shyam Sundar by e-mail at sss12@psu.edu or by telephone at (814) 865-2173