This study examined the pattern of consent to linking their survey data with Twitter accounts as a function of socio-demographic characteristics, privacy concerns and smartphone usage among participants in the UK Understanding Society Innovation Panel.
Twitter linkage consent was positively associated with the variety of smartphone activities but not with the smartphone activity frequency and The smartphone technical skills. Privacy concern significant affected the Twitter linkage consent. Age and employment status moderated the associations between privacy concern and Twitter linkage consent. The relationship between privacy concerns and consent was more pronounced among younger than middle-age or older respondents. Among those with higher concerns, younger respondents were less likely to consent than their older counterparts, while among those with a low level of privacy concerns, younger respondents were more likely to consent than their counterparts. The negative relationship between privacy concerns and linkage consent was more pronounced among employed than unemployed respondents.