Understanding Privacy Behaviors of Millennials within Social Networking Sites

摘要

Creating and defining an online persona is something mostMillennials will find themselves doing as they transitioninto adulthood. Today having an online profile is almostessential to fully network with friends, family, andemployers. Despite the popularity of this technologyamongst teenagers, not a lot is understood in terms of theirprivacy behaviors or attitudes regarding privacy withinsocial networking sites (SNS). To investigate this, wedesigned an interview-based study, in which we questionedseveral high school students about their thoughts andprivacy practices, and habits. We found, contrary topopular thought, that privacy is a concern for mostMillennials and manifests itself in both attitudes andpractice for young users. Popular media, and often timesconcerned parents, have assumed teenagers do notunderstand the nuances of Social Networking Sites andbelieve Facebook is a danger-ridden landscape for youngpeople’s well being and reputation. This study howeverfound a group of savvy Millennials that understood thepotential dangers affiliated with low privacy settings, andtook precautions with their identity and online personas.The findings from this study, along with guidelines setforth for practice and additional research, will help theinformation community better evaluate Millennialbehaviors and serve their online needs.