Online Privacy as a Generational Issue

Despite what many people will tell you, more often we’re finding that online privacy is not a generational issue.

Yesterday, I posted about a recent Annenberg-Berkley study that revealed more than half of people 18-24 object to targeted online advertising.

Today, I will point you to a great article from Wired’s GeekDad, further exploring the generational issue:

According to the Pew Internet and American Life project, both teens and adults actively manage their information online - 60% of adults and 66% of teens restrict access to information in their profile. According to the Pew study, only 6% of teens make their first and last name publicly accessible on social networks- a very telling statistic. We want our cake, and we want to eat it too- we want to share our content online, and we want to control who we share it with.

Rather than an all-or-nothing public or private paradigm, we expect to be able to choose levels of privacy and levels of exposure to the public. Most teens restrict access to their online profiles and do not think that sharing their information with a specific set of people means that the information is in the public domain. This allows them to both gain the benefits of sharing and communicating online, but also protecting their privacy and remain empowered in their choices about their own information.