Teens Want Privacy, But Their Lives Are Public

By Pernille Tranberg

Privacy is definitely not dead for teens. They want privacy online, they expect it and they act as if they have it. These are just a few of many conclusions in a new representative survey about Teens & Public Lives in Denmark, published by a consortium of five NGOs and media houses.

Here are some of the key findings, which also include parents’ attitudes and thoughts:

• 98% of Danish Teens have a social media profile.
  Facebook (94%), Instagram (21%), Twitter (20%), GooglePlus (17%), Formspring (8%)
• 71% of teens answer, comment and like other people’s updates at least once a day. Only 28% of the parents are as active.
• 27% of teens post an update at least once a day, compared to only 8% of the parents.
• 65% of parents and 51% (girls more than boys) of teens say it is very important or crucial that what they share with friends cannot be seen or used by strangers.
• 24% of the teens are very sure that it is NOT happening and another 30% pretty sure, whereas the parents are much more sceptical about that.
• 38% of teens have uploaded something they regretted afterwards.
• 11% of teen girls (1% of boys) has been asked to turn on web cam by strangers and 13% of teen girls (1% of boys) have felt afraid because strangers approached them online.
• 7-8 out of 10 teens are aware that their digital trail can prompt bullying, burglaries and ID theft, but only half worry about it.
• 75% af the 15-18 year olds also know that employers and educational institutions use their digital trail to judge their future possibilies and 37% worries about it. The numbers are pretty close amongst their parents.
• Neither teens nor parent are really worried about tailored advertising, individual pricing or that insurance companies are looking over their shoulder. Or they don’t know about it.

We are all our own Broadcasting Station now
What comes to my attention first and foremost is that teens are much more their own publicists than their parents. They use social media to tell others what they think, not only to comment on what others’ think. This is a wonderful trend showing teens have courage and opinion and want to take part in the debate.
It is also very positive that parents and teens have a very similar opinion about privacy. They want it! Privacy is not dead, Mark Zuckerberg (founder of Facebook). We know it is convenient for your business model, but it’s just not the case.
Privacy might not be the same to everybody. It is very individual what you want to tell your best friend, your teacher or employer, your boyfriend and your parents. Some people are completely okay with telling everybody that they are homosexuals or they have cancer, others want to keep it to themselves or to a limited amount of people.
The problem is that you can not be private on social media. It is dead important to look at social media as a PUBLIC platform. Everything you share there, you should be willing to shout out on national television – in prime time.

Facebook’s “Privacy Settings” are an Illusion
What worries me is that so many believe they can actually do stuff on social media privately. 1 out of 4 teens are very sure about that and another 30% pretty sure. Yes, Facebook has “privacy settings” and that is definitely a part of the reason why many believe they can be private there. But also the lack of critical press and discussion about this is probably another reason.
Facebooks “privacy settings” are an illusion, they are more misleading that helpful and it should be called something else. A good example is Mark Zuckerberg’s own sister, Randi Zuckerberg. She posted a “private” picture on Facebook Christmas 2012, and a friend of hers reposted it on Twitter and shared it with her 40.000+o followers. That really upset Randi who argued it was private and a discussion ensued. My take bears repeating: Nothing is private on social media.

American Parents Much More Worried
What also really struck me is that Danish teens and parents are mostly worried about stuff that has been discussed in the press such as bullying and ID theft. They are not at all focused on other issues such as the data collection from their kids’ used for targetted advertising. That is something American parents really worry about according to this Pew Study: Parents, Teens and Online Privacy. Here, for example, 81% are really worried. In the Danish survey the numbers is only 17%.
I guess this difference is due to the fact that there is a lively debate in the media and the public about this and that the consequences are not visible yet.

Surveillance and Protection
Some more numbers from the Danish survey show what teens and their parents actually do to protect themselves.

• 79% of teens say they are friends witht there parents on a social network
• 74% of parents talked to their children about privacy
• 41% of the parents help kids set up “privacy-settings”
• 30% delete cookies in their browser
• 21% surveil their kids without them knowing
• 13% of the parents and 11% of the kids use pseudonyms
• 2-3 out of 10 of both parents and teens use spam-mail addresses
• 31% of the teens have asked others not to tag them
• 30% of the teens dont give their real age
• 73% of the parents have not googled their kids’ name within the last year

So, there is definitely a lot more to do on this matter, especially learning how to protect yourself with pseudonyms, VPN (to hide your IP-addresss), do-not-track extensions etc.