College Students' Attitudes & Information Literacy Knowledge Related to Privacy on TikTok

This study is a project designed to be part of the PhD dissertation research as a pilot aimed at assessing the study's feasibility and its potential for refinement. The paper presents a study that explored the attitudes and knowledge of college students toward privacy in TikTok. This paper aims to comparatively assess student privacy literacy and privacy‐related concerns along with their response patterns towards the Florida State University policy banning TikTok on campus networks. The study utilizes semi‐structured, qualitative interviews to collect data from five undergraduate students (age 18–24) at Florida State University. It has analyzed and discussed the data collected from these interviews to achieve greater insight into the privacy literacy of students, their privacy concerns, and how Generation Z (Gen Z) students view institutional policies affect their use of social media. Preliminary findings suggests students are skeptical of the ban due to perceived ineffectiveness of the school policy. Analysis showed the new school rules had little effect on students' usage pattern or the amount of time they spent using TikTok.