Overwhelming, Important, Irrelevant: Terms of Service and Privacy Policy Reading among Older Adults

Social media users often ignore terms of service and privacy policies, but limited empirical evidence explains why, especially for older adults. This survey study reveals three specific attitudes that older adults (50+) hold about these policies: 1) they are overwhelming; 2) they are important but time-consuming; and 3) they are irrelevant. These attitudes differentially predict how long these users spend reading terms of service and privacy policies when signing up for different social media services and when policies change. Online privacy literacy was also negatively related to time spent reading policies. Results are discussed in terms of practical implications regarding how terms of service and privacy policies are presented to users.