RESEARCH: Teens, Social Media and Privacy

May 21, 2013. Pew Internet (via PlayScience). (English). –Teens have become more likely to share information about themselves online, like photos, the name of their school, email address and phone numbers, but less likely to share this information haphazardly with the general public, according to a new report by the Pew Research Center. Teens have become more aware of privacy concerns and are now taking technical and non-technical steps to manage their information and online personas. Though they put more out in to the internet world now than they did 6 years ago, they are allowing fewer people to see it.

Key findings include:

Teens are sharing more information about themselves on their social media profiles than they did when we last surveyed in 2006:

• 91% post a photo of themselves, up from 79% in 2006.
• 71% post their school name, up from 49%.
• 71% post the city or town where they live, up from 61%.
• 53% post their email address, up from 29%.
• 20% post their cell phone number, up from 2%.

60% of teen Facebook users set their Facebook profiles to private (friends only), and most report high levels of confidence in their ability to manage their settings.

• 56% of teen Facebook users say it’s “not difficult at all” to manage the privacy controls on their Facebook profile.
• 33% Facebook-using teens say it’s “not too difficult.”
• 8% of teen Facebook users say that managing their privacy controls is “somewhat difficult,” while less than 1% describe the process as “very difficult.”

[caption id=”attachment_2556" align=”aligncenter” width=”431"]

Sharing, connections, & privacy in the world of teen social media[/caption]

ABOUT THE SURVEY

These findings are based on a nationally representative phone survey run by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project of 802 parents and their 802 teens ages 12–17. It was conducted between July 26 and September 30, 2012. Interviews were conducted in English and Spanish and on landline and cell phones. The margin of error for the full sample is ± 4.5 percentage points.

This report marries that data with insights and quotes from in-person focus groups conducted by the Youth and Media team at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University beginning in February 2013. The focus groups focused on privacy and digital media, with special emphasis on social media sites. The team conducted 24 focus group interviews with 156 students across the greater Boston area, Los Angeles (California), Santa Barbara (California), and Greensboro (North Carolina). Each focus group lasted 90 minutes, including a 15-minute questionnaire completed prior to starting the interview, consisting of 20 multiple-choice questions and 1 open-ended response. Although the research sample was not designed to constitute representative cross-sections of particular population(s), the sample includes participants from diverse ethnic, racial, and economic backgrounds. Participants ranged in age from 11 to 19. The mean age of participants is 14.5.

In addition, two online focus groups of teenagers ages 12–17 were conducted by the Pew Internet Project from June 20–27, 2012 to help inform the survey design. The first focus group was with 11 middle schoolers ages 12–14, and the second group was with nine high schoolers ages 14–17. Each group was mixed gender, with some racial, socio-economic, and regional diversity. The groups were conducted as an asynchronous threaded discussion over three days using an online platform and the participants were asked to log in twice per day.

Throughout this report, this focus group material is highlighted in several ways. Pew’s online focus group quotes are interspersed with relevant statistics from the survey in order to illustrate findings that were echoed in the focus groups or to provide additional context to the data. In addition, at several points, there are extensive excerpts boxed off as standalone text boxes that elaborate on a number of important themes that emerged from the in-person focus groups conducted by the Berkman Center.