Mining PEW-Teens, Social Media, and Privacy

Beaton, M., Cortesi, S., Duggan, M., Gasser, U., Lenhart, A., Madden, M., & Smith, A.
     (2013).Teens, Social Media, and Privacy.  Pew Research Center, 1-107.  Retrieved
     from http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2013/Teens-Social-Media-And-Privacy.aspx

     In this age of technology, teens are using the social media to share information about themselves.  They are posting their names, where they live, email, birth date, videos of themselves, photos, and their relationship status just to name a few of the things going online.  As a parent this can be very worrisome, since there are many predators out there that can steal identities or stalk their teens.  In a survey from the Pew Research Center, it was found that teens are not haphazardly adding their information on social media sites.  Some are making sure that they have the proper privacy settings so that only friends and family can view their information, but I feel parents still need to monitor closely what their teens are doing online in order for them to have a safe online experience.

     According to this report, 802 teens were surveyed on privacy management and on social media sites.  They compared two age groups of teens, 12-13 and 14-17.  They also did comparisons between girls and boys, ethnicity, and social media types.

     In the survey, it was found that depending on the age group, teens were posting certain types of information.  Older teens (14-17) were posting more photos of themselves, their school name, their relationship status and their cell phone numbers (Yikes!).  It turns out a higher percentage of the boys were posting their phone numbers.

     One of the alarming things that I found that teens said to be doing on the social media was having their profile to automatically post their location on their post. This was being done by both age groups, boys and girls, and by different ethnicity.  Their reasoning is that this was to signal to friends and family where they were.  I think that this will also signal online predators by letting them know exactly where you are.  I think a simple text message will let parents know the teens location.

Twitter

     Twitter is one of the social media sites that is on the rise according to this research.  In 2012 24% of teens were using Twitter.  It has grown from 16% in 2011 and 8% in 2009 when the question was first asked.  They did say that Afro-American teens are more likely (39%) to use Twitter when compared to white youth (23%).  The only problem that I saw with teens using Twitter is that most of them have public accounts, and some did not know whether their accounts were public or private.  As a parent, I strongly believe that if a teen is going to be on social media, he needs to be aware of the privacy settings and be conscious of what they are posting since the world will be watching.

Facebook

     Many of today's teens have an account on Facebook.  Your typical teen has about 300 friends.  It also appears that girls and the older group of teens have more Friends then boys and the younger group of teens.  The "Friend" group includes people they know from school, members of the extended family, brothers and sisters, parents, friends from other schools, teachers, coaches, celebrities, musicians, or athletes.   The younger group of teens (12-13) tend not to friend people from different schools, people they have never met, and their teachers and coaches.
     One of the things that seem to ironic is that teens were increasingly using Facebook as their main social site, but most of them were not too enthusiastic about using it.  They felt there was too much "drama" associated with the postings in that site.  They felt drained because it was happening very frequently.  Teens also felt stressed in having to manage their reputation on Facebook, but they would not stop using it because that was where everything was happening and they felt they had to stay on in order not to miss out on things.  Many teens expressed that they felt more comfortable using Twitter or Instagram.  They felt they could express themselves better on those social medias.
     I was happy to read that 60% of teens using Facebook are keeping their profiles private.  Majority of the girls (70%) were keeping their profile settings as private where only their friends can see their postings.  Only 50% of the boys were keeping their profiles private.  Many of the teens' parents want to be friends with their son or daughter in order to keep up with what they are doing.  It turns out that many of the teens accept their parents as friends and let them see the same things that their friends are seeing, but there are those that will create a different profile for their friends and one for their parents and family.  They want that ability to be themselves without their parents hindering them in their postings.
     On Facebook, teens are careful with their reputations.  They delete or edit something that was posted, delete comments from others, remove their names from photos, or completely delete their profile from Facebook in order to create the reputation they want.  Teens also block people to keep them from seeing their post.  This is a form of also managing their privacy on their profiles.  It does make me feel better to know that teens are this active in "curating" their own profiles.  I do get concerned with teens who have a higher network size.  They do tend to have a larger variety of people they have as  friends.  This includes people from schools they do not attend, with people they never met, or with their teachers and coaches.  I would think teachers would be O.K. to be friends with, but with the things going on in the news, it would be safer not to have them as friends, either.

     I think that this research does show that teens are being careful when they are using the social medias.  They are going to the settings of apps such as Facebook or Twitter and only allowing their friends and families to see their information.  I still believe that parents need to monitor what their teens are doing when on social medias.  It will keep them safe and make the social medias a more enjoyable experience.

   

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