People increasingly shunning social media over privacy, addiction, neuroticism concerns

A new study has revealed that the increase in the number of social media quitters is due to their concerns over privacy, internet addiction and neuroticism.

The study was conducted by scholars from the University of Vienna, Austria, who compared more than 300 Facebook quitters to about an equal number of Facebook users and found that users are becoming more conscious of their online security after the alleged NSA revelations and WikiLeaks.

Professor Stefan Stieger, co-author of the study report several significant differences that distinguish from those who have decided to delete their Facebook accounts.

Brenda K. Wiederhold, Editot-in-Chief of Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, from the Interactive Media Institute, San Diego, CA said that given the high profile stories such as WikiLeaks and the recent NSA surveillance reports, individual citizens are becoming increasingly more wary of cyber-related privacy concerns.

Wiederhold added that with photo tags, profiling, and internet dependency issues, research such as done by Professor Stieger is very timely.