How Online Activities Shape Anti-Fraud Payment Behavior: Evidence from Chinese Youth

In today’s digital age, understanding how online behaviors affect payment security awareness is crucial for fraud prevention. This study investigates how different types of online activities shape anti-fraud payment behavior among Chinese youth, utilizing data from the Chinese General Social Survey (2017). Through ordered Probit regression analysis of 557 valid samples, we provide empirical evidence that social networking and self-presentation activities significantly enhance anti-fraud awareness. In contrast, information acquisition and online rights protection activities show moderate effects. The influence mechanisms demonstrate significant demographic heterogeneity: gender differences appear in behavioral pattern formation, rural-urban disparities affect the impact of social activities, and educational background moderates the relationship between online engagement and anti-fraud consciousness. These findings suggest the importance of developing targeted fraud prevention strategies considering the nature of online activities and demographic characteristics. Our study contributes to understanding the formation mechanism of anti-fraud behavior in digital payment environments and provides practical implications for enhancing youth fraud prevention. In the digital payment era, online fraud is increasingly threatening young people’s financial security through increasingly sophisticated methods. Contrary to traditional views, this study finds that simply increasing anti-fraud knowledge education may not be sufficient—the key lies in understanding how young people form and strengthen their payment security awareness through daily online activities. Through analysis of survey data from China, the study finds that social networking and self-presentation activities significantly enhance young people’s payment security awareness, primarily because these activities provide opportunities for sharing fraud cases, mutual reminders, and learning anti-fraud experiences. However, in daily entertainment and commercial transaction scenarios, young people’s security awareness tends to decrease, which is precisely the vulnerability that fraudsters often exploit. The research also reveals that young people from different backgrounds show different characteristics and vulnerabilities in fraud prevention, suggesting the need for more targeted strategies in anti-fraud efforts. These findings provide new insights and practical recommendations for improving the effectiveness of fraud prevention.