Share Paper: Social Media and Privacy: Comparing U.S. and Japanese College Students’ Use of Facebook and Twitter

  1. Peng-Yu Tung, Waseda University, Japan
  2. Douglass Scott, Waseda University, Japan
Thursday, October 11 4:30 PM-5:00 PM Salon Joyce

Abstract: Multicultural comparisons of online blogging show that users from most countries fall into similar patterns of use. One notable exception is Japanese bloggers’ strong tendency to conceal their identity (Su, Wang, Mark, Aiyelokun, Nakano, 2005). The authors wondered if this tendency continues with social networking services (SNS). The current pilot study gave paper-based questionnaires to 51 Japanese and 11 American university students. The findings contradict the blogging studies and reveal a more complex balance of privacy and openness by Japanese SNS users. Not only were these Japanese young people more open in their identification on SNS than were bloggers in ...