Privacy awareness in social media: The case of Hitit University

With the increase in new communication technologies, social media has increased its power and brought many changes and transformations. Social media, which continues its existence in social life, has also included the family institution and private life. In social media, it is aimed to be liked, appreciated and followed with admiration. Individuals who regularly use social media platforms harm their privacy by recording their every moment. For this reason, social media limits the privacy area of individuals and gradually narrows this area. Today, private situations, areas, moral facts and values from the past have begun to disappear and become normal. The aim of this study is to evaluate the social media shares of students within the framework of the concepts of privacy, violation of privacy and surveillance. In the study, it was aimed to measure the privacy perceptions and awareness of the participants' socio-demographic variables such as gender, age, education, parental union and income status in social media usage practices and to offer students suggestions on this subject. Questionnaire method was used in our study. A survey was conducted with 390 students in order to determine the attitudes of individuals about their social media posts. The data obtained were examined in terms of socio-demographic dimensions such as age, gender, education, parental union and income status, in line with the concept of privacy of social media posts. In this study, the effect of social media, which has increased with the widespread use of the internet and technological developments, on the privacy perception levels of individuals and the change in the perception of privacy has been discussed and the picture of the transformation in the understanding of privacy has been tried to be revealed. The current situation and possible results on this issue in the world and in Turkey are presented. This study deals with the definition, evaluation, classification of social media and privacy, and the factors of the relationship between social media and privacy, and it is aimed to give due importance to the concept of privacy, which is damaged by the widespread use of social media platforms, to prevent this violation and to increase the awareness of individuals on this issue. The study was designed as a literature review covering the examination of previous studies published in Turkish and related studies were reached through national and international journals, the Higher Education Council (YÖK) graduate thesis database and Google search engine.