Teens and Online Privacy

Source: https://s3.amazonaws.com/easel.ly/all_easels/150751/onlineprivacy/image.jpg

The Pew Research team conducted a survey to see where teens (12-17) seek their online privacy advice. They conducted a phone survey and focus groups to gather their findings. From their research, they found that teens are aware and taking active steps to protect themselves online. 70% of those surveyed reported that they have sought advice from someone or somewhere in regards to protecting their privacy online. Of those students who sought assistance, asking a friend or parent were the top reported choices for advice with friends being 1% more likely than parents.Younger teens are more likely to seek advice from parents or teachers where as older teens are less likely to consult adults. This might be due to the age difference in their parents. Older teens will most likely have older parents who are less likely to have embraced technology or social medias.

"Male (age 18): 'Usually I’d just ask a friend. Parents are a no-go… My parents are pretty old school, like, they don’t really use the Internet. And teacher wise, I wouldn’t really want to ask my teachers. Also, I wouldn’t really think that they would know.'
Male (age 16): 'Parents, they don’t know how computers work. My dad does, but he doesn’t know how the Internet works…. And teachers, not really. I remember in my old school… We’d had a couple classes about Internet safety, but that was about it. I haven’t asked teachers specific questions about it.'”

Source: http://www.quickmeme.com/Parents-just-dont-understand

Many teens have the notion, whether they are aware of it or not, that adults cannot possibly understand new-fangled technology. I loved mesmerizing my students with my ability to accurately type words quickly without looking at the keyboard. They are even more impressed when they realized that I was looking at the projection screen, or sometimes them, while typing instead of my laptop screen. Aw simple pleasures. While they did have to teach me a few tricks from time-to-time, it was often me teaching them how something worked. Perhaps this should clue us teachers in that we need to let students know that you can teach an old dog new tricks. 

As with the survey done on app downloading, the area covered in the survey was California, Massachusetts, and North Carolina. It would be interesting to see if the results would be similar with teens in other states. Teens in the Mid-West might not be as likely to seek assistance with online privacy since they are not a hot bed for technology. MIT and Cal Tech are both located in the surveyed area, so teens living here might be more willing to ask for help than teens who live in state with a greater population of sheep than people.

Over all, it is good to know that some teens are taking steps to protect themselves online. Hopefully more teens are doing the same since now so much of our lives are on the web.

Lenhart, A., Madden, M., Cortesi, S., Gasser, U., & Smith, A. (2013, August 15). Where Teens Seek Online Privacy Advice. Retrieved September 16, 2014, from http://www.pewinternet.org/2013/08/15/where-teens-seek-online-privacy-advice/.

Mining PEW Progress: 6/150 pages

Brittany