Online self-disclosure: The privacy paradox explained as a temporally discounted balance between concerns and rewards

Technological innovations are increasingly helping people expand their social capital through online networks by offering new opportunities for sharing personal information. Online social networks are perceived to provide individuals new benefits and have led to a surge of personal data uploaded, stored, and shared. While privacy concerns are a major issue for many users of social networking sites, studies have shown that their information disclosing behavior does not align with their concerns. This gap between behavior and concern is called the privacy paradox. Several theories have been explored to explain this, but with inconsistent and incomplete results. This study investigates the paradox using a construal level theory lens. We show how a privacy breach, not yet experienced and psychologically distant, has less weight in everyday choices than more concrete and psychologically-near social networking activities and discuss the implications for research and practice. •An explanation of the information privacy paradox using Construal Level Theory.•Intentions mediate the relationship between privacy concerns and self-disclosure behavior.•Social Rewards predict online behavior through near-future intentions.•Privacy Concerns relate to distant-future intentions, but do not directly affect the online behavior.•Privacy concerns indirectly affect online behavior through near-future intentions.