Social Engineering, Multidimensional Harm, and Sustained Safe Continuance Among Kenyan Social Media Users: An Integrated Framework

Abstract

Social engineering has become the dominant mode of attack against social media users, yet its consequences are typically studied one harm at a time and rarely connected to the protective behaviors through which users sustain safe participation. This study developed and empirically validated an integrated framework linking motivational engagement, exposure to social engineering, four distinct harms, protective capability, and sustained safe continuance among Kenyan social media users. A convergent parallel mixed-methods design combined a cross-sectional survey of 304 users with ten focus-group discussions. Survey data were analyzed through structural equation modelling, and focus-group data through reflexive thematic analysis. Of fifteen hypothesized paths, eleven were supported. Social motivations, but not technological factors, significantly drove engagement, which in turn increased exposure. Exposure produced all four harms, binding most strongly to financial harm, then psychological harm, digital wellbeing, and platform trust. Protective behavior formed an ordered progression from foundational hygiene through proactive defense and advanced protection to recovery and help-seeking. Sustained safe continuance was supported by foundational hygiene rather than advanced protection. The qualitative findings corroborated these patterns and explained the limited contribution of help-seeking by reference to the inadequacy of formal support. The framework advances a differentiated, developmental, and contextually grounded account of how users experience and resist social engineering in a mobile-money environment.