Teens and Their Privacy

Lenhart, A. (2013) Teens, social media, and privacy: reputation management, third party access & exposure to advertising. Pew Research Internet Project. Retrieved from http://www.pewinternet.org/2013/06/25/teens-social-media-and-privacy-reputation-management-third-party-access-exposure-to-advertising/

This presentation covered the steps teens take (or do not take) to manage their privacy on social media sites. There are many interesting and some very alarming facts in this article. I was not surprised to see that Facebook is still the dominant platform that teens use for social media. There was a steady climb in Facebook membership from teens until 2011, then the increase slowed down a lot, although membership has still grown slightly since 2011 (only 1% growth from 2011-2012). Adult membership on Facebook took a huge jump from 2008-2011 (40% growth), which probably is a good clue as to why teen membership slowed down at that point. Twitter, on the other hand, has increased significantly since 2009 in teen membership. I wonder if most teens are moving from Facebook to Twitter, or if they are just adding Twitter in addition to Facebook. The two platforms are quite different, so my guess would be that it is in addition to. In 2012, the top three social media platforms for teens were Facebook (94%), Twitter (26%), and Instagram (11%). Instagram was brand new then, so I would assume the percentage of teens on Instagram would be WAY more than that now, in 2014.

I was a little surprised to see the type of information that teens are sharing on their social media profiles. Most of them have their profiles set to “private,” and still I think they share too much information. Especially since most teens accept each and every friend request that comes their way…whether they know the person or not. 92% of teens share their real name…which is not that surprising. I know that my niece and nephew have fake names on their profiles, but that’s because my sister made them, not because THEY were trying to be safe. 91% of teens share photos of themselves. This is more so for older teens, but I would say that is only because older teens more likely have smart phones that they can take pictures with. 71% of teens share their school name. This is a lot more dangerous than they probably realize, because this tells strangers where they live, their approximate age, when they might be traveling to and from school, etc. This is more common for older teens, and my assumption would be because older teens are more involved in school extra-curricular activities so they are more likely to post things about their games, competitions, etc. 53% of teens share their email address and 20% their cell phone number on their profiles. I hate that teens (even though only 1 out of 5) share their cell phone numbers. This just opens up a lot of scary possibilities, such as strangers getting their numbers, bullying, sexting, pranking, etc. Not a good idea! I think that when most teens create their profile and add this information, they are thinking of their good friends and family that will see it. The acquaintances, friends of friends, ex-friends, etc. that are on their Facebook friends list are probably not in the forefront of their mind, so they do not realize how dangerous it is to share too much information.

As for privacy settings, only 60% of teens have their Facebook settings set to private! That is way too low. 14% of teens have theirs set as public! I think Facebook, and any other social media site, should make it a requirement that anyone under the age of 18 has to have their profiles set to fully private. Then again, teens just set up accounts and lie about their age, so I am not sure how productive that would be. Twitter is even more nerve-wracking, because 64% of teen Twitter users have their profiles set to public. Granted, Twitter is a much more public forum and people tend to share less private information in their short Tweets, but again, I think that teens should be required to have private profiles and pages.

It was interesting to read how teens manage their online reputation. Reputation is a big deal, especially in your teen years, so I am glad to see that teens are taking precautions to create a positive online reputation. 59% of teens delete or edit posts. This is great, because teens are often known to post something without thinking, so the fact that they go back and delete or edit these posts is encouraging. 53% delete other people’s comments on their page, which is also a good thing. I found it interesting that more girls than boys untag their photos. I would guess that this is not for safety reasons, but because girls are far more picky about how they look in photos! Another interesting management point that is mostly done by girls is deleting and blocking people on social media sites. I would think that this is because girls tend to be more emotional when it comes to arguments and drama in the life of teens. When girls fight, or a couple breaks up, or a friend is mean to another friend, it is girls who are most likely to unfriend someone to prove a point. Boys tend to ignore things like this.

When reading about the concern that teens have over third parties using their information, I was not very surprised to read that teens do not care much at all. Most teens are not too concerned, probably because they really don’t know what that means. Girls do show slightly more concern than boys. I did find it interesting that those with bigger networks of “friends” are slightly less concerned than those with smaller networks. My thoughts on this are that teens with larger networks are probably the ones that accept friend requests from people that they barely know or do not know at all. They are also the teens that probably have less monitoring from their parents. The fact that they accept so many friend requests, in my opinion, shows that they have less concern for their security and their privacy. Which makes since that they have less concern over third parties using their personal information. When asked about how they feel regarding advertising practices, teens have mixed feelings. 30% of teens say that they have gotten inappropriate ads on their social media pages…which could mean that the ads should have been for older eyes only, or even would be more appropriate for younger users. One quote that was eye-opening to me was the 13 year old male that said “I usually just hit allow on everything. Because I feel like it would get more features. And a lot of people allow it, so it’s not like they’re going to single out my stuff. I don’t really feel worried about it.” This just shows the lack of concern that some teens have for their safety and their privacy. It also show how clueless teens are about the fact that advertisers and other third parties use their specific information to target their sales.

The most surprising information in this presentation was the concern of parents. Only 53% of parents are very concerned about their children’s interactions with strangers online. Are the other 47% of parents just that confident that their kids cannot interact with strangers, or could they care less if they do or not?! As a parent, I feel like this will always be a huge concern. Only 49% of parents are concerned about their child’s reputation management. Again, do the other 51% not care about their child’s reputation online? I would hope that more than 44% of parents would be concerned that their teen’s online activities will impact their future opportunities. It is sad that more parents are not expressing concern for their student’s behaviors and involvement in online social media sites. If more parents were concerned, then more teens would be concerned as well!

Mining PEW – 24 pages (151 total)