Privacy and Security in Technology-Enhanced Environments: Exploring Users’ Knowledge about Technological Processes of Diverse User Groups

This article reports on two user studies  exploring the knowledge of end users about technical  processes of technology-enhanced home environments,  which are often assumed to play an important role for  attitudes such as privacy and security. In the first study (n=12 participants between 19-71 years of age), we analyzed user knowledge about technical processes using the teach-back methodology. In the second study, we additionally applied  new developed questionnaires and analyzed participants’  data (n=24 participants between 19-76 years of age)  regarding relations of user factors, users’ knowledge about  technical processes and attitudes such as privacy and security of technology-enhanced environments. In contrast to  existing assumptions, the results showed that general  structural knowledge about technical processes was not  related with attitudes such as privacy and security. Additionally, we found that most participants had only  relatively superficial knowledge about technical processes, which was further influenced by age and technology  experience.