Abstract

The use of Facebook applications especially among young people has continued to increase on a daily basis. Among other things, the issue of privacy of users in terms of amount of information requested from users, as well as the safety of such information, has continued to generate a lot of concerns among communication stakeholders. One of the major reasons why these concerns are raised is the issue of lack of awareness and insufficient concern of the privacy issues which these applications expose users to. The study therefore looked at the extent to which the Babcock University undergraduates are aware and concerned about their online privacy while using the services of Facebook. Two theories provided theoretical justification for this study including privacy calculus theory and communication privacy management theory. The quantitative survey research method was adopted. From a population of 9,180 Babcock University undergraduates, a sample size of 368 was determined with the Cochran formula while the respondents were selected through the simple random sampling technique and fishbowl method. Using questionnaire as the data collection instrument, data were collected from the 359 copies of the questionnaire that were properly filled and analysed with descriptive statistical tools such as simple percentage calculation as well as frequency counts. Findings showed that in spite of the intense use of Facebook applications among the undergraduates, they do not take active steps to safeguard their privacy online although they are aware of some of the privacy issues. For example, only 37% agreed that they were actually concerned about their privacy while using these Facebook applications. The study recommends that users take the proper steps to safeguard their privacy on Facebook applications by being cautious of the kind of information they reveal online or share with friends especially on the Facebook applications while also avoiding the installation of third party applications from Facebook applications.