Illusion of Control

Article Title: Privacy as information access and illusory control: The case of the Facebook News Feed privacy outcry
http://bit.ly/cUMbAf
This paper discusses an experiment of 172 current college Facebook users. It exploits the privacy concerns of Facebook users. Surveys asked the participants about how they used social networking sites and how they shared information online. Due to the addition of the News Feed and Mini Feed features, people think they have less control over what is being shared because its easier to access the information.

But when you think about it, the amount of control is ideally the same as before News and Mini Feeds. The ability to control who saw things on your profile had always been there, maybe not as robust, but it was still there. The visibility of postings is all that changed and it makes me wonder if Facebook removed these features, would people think their information was more private.