TRUSTe has released a report focused on the privacy habits and preferences of teens and their parents. The research was conducted between June 24 and July 1, via email to 4,000 of Lightspeed Research’s MySurvey Panelists at socially-networked households who reported having a teenager in the house.
For the most part, parents feel in control:
- 84% of parents are confident their teen is responsible with personal information on a social networking site
- 72% of parents surveyed monitor their teens’ accounts
- 82% of parents feel they should be able to delete information from their teens’ accounts by contacting Facebook or other sites
- Only 11% of parents and 6% of teens worry about privacy on Facebook
But the survey does show there are still reasons to be concerned about teen social networking behavior:
- 18% of teens report that they have been embarrassed or disciplined as a result of a posting
- 80% of teens use privacy settings at some point to hide content from certain friends and/or parents
- 68% of teens surveyed have at some time accepted friend invites from people they don’t know
- Only 59% of teens and 52% of parents agree that Facebook privacy settings are clear
The report also reveals differences in how teens and their parents use social networks:
- Teens are more likely to use social media for a variety of activities, including chat, gaming, sharing online content and taking quizzes than their parents
- Teens also spend far more time on social networks, and have more friends than their parents do
- 43% of teens check their social networks multiple times a day; only 33% of parents do
Click here to download the complete report (PDF).
