Tag: Pew Charitable Trust

According to a study by Pew Internet, Teens now share more information about themselves on social media sites than they have in the past. At the same time, though, they are more protective about privacy issues, and take privacy-protective actions. Contrarily, Teens do not express concerns about third-parties accessing their data, and only 9% of teens say that they are “very” concerned. Teens are sharing more information about themselves than they were in 2006: 91% post a photo of themselves; 71% post their school name, and 53% post their email addresses. At the same time, 60% have their profiles set to private, and report high levels of confidence in being able to manage their privacy settings. Whether this view is naive or not remains to be seen, but what is sure is that Teens are sharing data at an increasing rate, and believe that this data is at least partially secure from third parties. Companies like Ghostery have begun to expose the third-party tracking and the extent to which it stretches, but for the most part the population remains relatively unaware of the extent of third-party tracking.