GONE FOR BETTER OR FOR WORSE? EXPLORING THE DUAL NATURE OF EPHEMERALITY ON SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS

The implementation of functionalities inspired by ephemerality represents a new and promising direction for social media platform providers to ensure active user participation. Social media platforms that already rely on ephemerality show increased activity rates. However, ephemerality represents a whole new principle in the social media context; and its impact on user perceptions and behaviours has hardly been explored. Building on an exploratory research approach, we seek to develop an in-depth understanding of how and why perceived ephemerality affects user behaviour. Based on 37 interviews with users of ephemerality-based platforms and drawing on a thematic analysis, we depict the promising nature of ephemerality by revealing its positive impact on user behaviour, such as an increase in users’ willingness to share information. We found that users’ control perceptions help to explain this positive relationship. However, and contrary to existing knowledge, we found that, in specific conditions, perceived ephemerality can negatively affect user behaviour. This adverse effect can be explained by users’ loss perceptions as an underlying cognitive mechanism. From a practical perspective, our findings highlight the need to keep the delicate balance of potential upsides and downsides of ephemerality when implementing functionalities

SHARING IS (NOT) CARING – THE ROLE OF EXTERNAL PRIVACY IN USERS’ INFORMATION DISCLOSURE BEHAVIORS ON SOCIAL NETWORK SITES

Social network sites (SNSs) enjoy wide popularity as platforms for social interaction. When users interact with each other, they however do not only disclose their own information, but also information about others. Users therefore do not only manage their own privacy (internal privacy), but also that of others (external privacy). Privacy concerns and their effects on disclosure behavior have been extensively examined in prior literature, but there has been little research in IS on the role of external privacy. There is a gap in research on how concerns for external privacy might affect users’ voluntary disclosure decisions and how first-hand privacy invasion experiences shape users’ concerns for external privacy. We apply external information privacy concerns (EIPC) and external social privacy concerns (ESPC) as proxies for measuring external privacy. Our research model is based on Communication Privacy Management theory, empirically validated through an online survey with 265 participants. We find that EIPC and ESPC negatively affect users’ intentions to disclose information about others. In contrast, when individuals perceive ownership of others’ information, their willingness to disclose increases. Finally, users’ own experience with privacy invasion moderates the relationship between EIPC, ESPC, and users’ disclosure intentions

Snap. Share. (Don’t) Care? Ephemerality, Privacy Concerns, and The Use of Ephemeral Social Network Sites

Active participation is crucial for any successful social network site. However, privacy concerns may keep individuals from actively using these networks. Ephemerality—a new technical feature—may counteract privacy concerns while driving active usage. The recent success of ephemeral social network sites (ESNS) which build on ephemerality presumably owes to this technical peculiarity. Despite its high practical relevance, little is known about the concept of ephemerality and about how it affects ESNS usage intention. In this paper, we investigate the effect of ephemerality on two crucial determinants of ESNS usage—privacy concerns and enjoyment—and ultimately on the intention to use an ESNS. Drawing on the Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) framework and the privacy calculus approach, we develop a research model and test it based on an online survey with 429 participants. We find that perceived ephemerality drives individuals’ ESNS usage intentions by lowering privacy concerns while raising perceived enjoyment

Empagliflozin in Patients with Chronic Kidney Disease

Background The effects of empagliflozin in patients with chronic kidney disease who are at risk for disease progression are not well understood. The EMPA-KIDNEY trial was designed to assess the effects of treatment with empagliflozin in a broad range of such patients. Methods We enrolled patients with chronic kidney disease who had an estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) of at least 20 but less than 45 ml per minute per 1.73 m(2) of body-surface area, or who had an eGFR of at least 45 but less than 90 ml per minute per 1.73 m(2) with a urinary albumin-to-creatinine ratio (with albumin measured in milligrams and creatinine measured in grams) of at least 200. Patients were randomly assigned to receive empagliflozin (10 mg once daily) or matching placebo. The primary outcome was a composite of progression of kidney disease (defined as end-stage kidney disease, a sustained decrease in eGFR to < 10 ml per minute per 1.73 m(2), a sustained decrease in eGFR of & GE;40% from baseline, or death from renal causes) or death from cardiovascular causes. Results A total of 6609 patients underwent randomization. During a median of 2.0 years of follow-up, progression of kidney disease or death from cardiovascular causes occurred in 432 of 3304 patients (13.1%) in the empagliflozin group and in 558 of 3305 patients (16.9%) in the placebo group (hazard ratio, 0.72; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.64 to 0.82; P < 0.001). Results were consistent among patients with or without diabetes and across subgroups defined according to eGFR ranges. The rate of hospitalization from any cause was lower in the empagliflozin group than in the placebo group (hazard ratio, 0.86; 95% CI, 0.78 to 0.95; P=0.003), but there were no significant between-group differences with respect to the composite outcome of hospitalization for heart failure or death from cardiovascular causes (which occurred in 4.0% in the empagliflozin group and 4.6% in the placebo group) or death from any cause (in 4.5% and 5.1%, respectively). The rates of serious adverse events were similar in the two groups. Conclusions Among a wide range of patients with chronic kidney disease who were at risk for disease progression, empagliflozin therapy led to a lower risk of progression of kidney disease or death from cardiovascular causes than placebo