Users' Cognitive and Affective Response to the Risk to Privacy from a Smart Speaker

Abstract

Smart speakers, which provide continuous real-time information and convenient services, increasingly permeate into users' homes. On the other hand, the environments of the smart speaker also cause privacy issues for the users by always listening to users' voices in their private homes. The privacy-prone environments of the smart speakers lead to the users' coping behaviors against privacy threats not only by increasing the users' privacy concerns but also by creating negative emotions. However, prior studies have predominantly focussed on cognitive frameworks and overlooked the impact of effect on users' coping behaviors in the context of privacy threats. Drawing on the stimuli-organisms-responses(S-O-R) framework, this study examines the mediating role of three representative negative emotions (anger, anxiety, disappointment) between users' privacy concerns and behaviors. The results indicate that the relationships between privacy concerns, negative emotions, and various privacy behaviors in the context of the smart speaker, emphasizing the mediating role of negative emotions. Findings of the study can enhance our knowledge of privacy research by adding the influence of effect in the cognitive-dominant framework.