The increasing use of online cookies for data collection has raised privacy concerns, including risks of price discrimination and targeted advertising. Yet, many users struggle to understand different types of cookies and their implications. This highlights a need for targeted educational initiatives aimed at empowering users to better understand online cookies and online privacy. This study examines age differences in the effectiveness of four privacy education modalities—text, interactive tutorial, chatbot, and video—on improving knowledge and behavior related to online tracking. Using a mixed-design experiment, we found that all modalities enhanced privacy knowledge and behaviors among younger and older adults. However, preferences and effectiveness varied by age group: younger adults responded best to chatbot and text formats, while older adults benefited more from the interactive tutorial and video. These findings highlight the need to tailor privacy education to users’ learning preferences to improve engagement and outcomes across age groups.

This study explores whether privacy literacy, self-efficacy, and concerns mediate the age-related effects on privacy decision behavior. To study privacy decision behavior, we designed an experiment that integrates both heuristic and cognitive manipulations in the decision scenario. 625 old and younger adults participated in the experiment and used our web-based application, “RecipeDigger.” The application recorded users’ privacy decision behavior in the form of accepting or rejecting cookies, which offered a personalized service. Our findings indicate that some of the differences in privacy decision-making between older and younger adults can be traced to having different levels of privacy literacy. Older and younger adults with higher privacy literacy can better align their privacy preferences with their disclosure behavior. By bridging the gap between psychological theories and privacy research, this study provides a comprehensive understanding of the factors influencing privacy decisions among older and younger adults, offering methodological, theoretical, and policy implications.

In this study, we explore the effectiveness of persuasive messages endorsing the adoption of a privacy protection technology (IoT Inspector) tailored to individuals’ regulatory focus (promotion or prevention). We explore if and how regulatory fit (i.e., tuning the goal-pursuit mechanism to individuals’ internal regulatory focus) can increase persuasion and adoption. We conducted a between-subject experiment (N = 236) presenting participants with the IoT Inspector in gain ("Privacy Enhancing Technology"—PET) or loss ("Privacy Preserving Technology"—PPT) framing. Results show that the effect of regulatory fit on adoption is mediated by trust and privacy calculus processes: prevention-focused users who read the PPT message trust the tool more. Furthermore, privacy calculus favors using the tool when promotion-focused individuals read the PET message. We discuss the contribution of understanding the cognitive mechanisms behind regulatory fit in privacy decision-making to support privacy protection.

Although older adults are increasingly adopting digital social technologies, a lack of knowledge and experience makes them vulnerable to digital privacy and security threats. It is, therefore, crucial to build digital privacy education interventions that empower older adults to take more control over their digital privacy. Most tutorials and support materials are designed for the younger generations and are not necessarily as effective for the older population. In this paper, we explore the development of education interventions suited to the learning styles of the older adult population. We particularly develop interventions that span a variety of modalities (text, videos, audio presentations, infographics, comics, interactive tutorials, and chatbots) and evaluate these interventions in a focus group study, gathering feedback from both older and younger adults regarding the education interventions and how to improve them. Our findings demonstrate that there are distinct differences in modality preferences between older and younger adults. In this paper, we discuss our findings and contribute to the development of digital privacy education interventions that are tailored to the specific needs and preferences of older adults.

To understand the underlying process of users’ information disclosure decisions, scholars often use either the privacy calculus framework or refer to heuristic shortcuts. It is unclear whether the decision process varies by age. Therefore, using these common frameworks, we conducted a web-based experiment with 94 participants, who were younger (ages 19-22) or older (65+) adults, to understand how perceived app trust, sensitivity of the data, and benefits of disclosure influence users disclosure decisions. Younger adults were more likely to change their perception of data sensitivity based on trust, while older adults were more likely to disclose information based on perceived benefits of disclosure. These results suggest older adults made more rationally calculated decisions than younger adults, who made heuristic decisions based on app trust. Our findings negate the mainstream narrative that older adults are less privacy-conscious than younger adults; instead, older adults weigh the benefits and risks of information disclosure.