Report: Parents, Teens, and Online Privacy

Parents, Teens, and Online Privacy: New Survey Findings from Pew Research Center and Berkman Klein Center

81% of parents of online teens say they are concerned about how much information advertisers can learn about their child’s online behavior; 46% are “very” concerned

November 20, 2012

The Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society and its Youth and Media Project are pleased to share a new report, the first in a series discussing issues of youth and privacy in collaboration with the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project. The Youth and Media Team has put together a fun video sharing data and findings from the report.

A full press release follows:

WASHINGTON (November 20, 2012) – Most parents of teenagers are concerned about what their teenage children do online and how their behavior could be monitored by others. Some parents are taking steps to observe, discuss, and check up on their children’s digital footprints, according to a new survey by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project.

Among the survey’s key findings:

81% of parents of online teens say they are concerned about how much information advertisers can learn about their child’s online behavior, with some 46% being “very” concerned.
72% of parents of online teens are concerned about how their child interacts online with people they do not know, with some 53% of parents being “very” concerned.
69% of parents of online teens are concerned about how their child’s online activity might affect their future academic or employment opportunities, with some 44% being “very” concerned about that.
69% of parents of online teens are concerned about how their child manages his or her reputation online, with some 49% being “very” concerned about that.
Some of these expressions of concern are particularly acute for the parents of younger teens; 63% of parents of teens ages 12-13 say they are “very” concerned about their child’s interactions with people they do not know online and 57% say they are “very” concerned about how their child manages his or her reputation online.

“There is a growing policy discussion about how government should act in an environment where personal information—about both children and adults—is widely collected, analyzed and shared as a new form of currency in the digital economy,” said Mary Madden, Research Associate for the Project and a co-author of the report. “Parents are anxious about a wide range of online risks for their children, but it is particularly striking that their current level of worry about data collection by advertisers meets or exceeds other concerns about their child’s online activity.”

A notable number of parents, especially parents of younger teens, are taking steps to act on these concerns:

59% of the parents of teen users of social networking sites (SNS) have talked with their child because they were concerned about something posted to their profile or account. (That translates to 46% of parents of all online teens.)
39% of the parents of teen users of SNS have helped their child set up privacy settings for a social networking site. (That translates to 31% of parents of all online teens.)

In addition to such direct interventions, some parents are monitoring their children on family computers and in online searches:

50% of parents of online teens (not just the teens who use SNS) have used parental controls or other means of blocking, filtering, or monitoring their child’s online activities—a number that has remained almost unchanged since last year.
42% of parents of online teens have searched for their child’s name online to see what information is available about him or her.
In addition to these activities, 44% of parents of online teens say they have taken the step of reading the privacy policies of websites or social networking sites that their child is using.

The survey also finds that a growing number of parents are becoming social media users themselves:

66% of all parents who have a child between the ages of 12-17, say they use a social networking site, up from 58% in 2011.
There is great variation according to the parent’s age; 82% of parents under age 40 say they use SNS, while only 61% of parents over age 40 use the sites.
Mothers and fathers are equally likely to use SNS, but parents who are college-educated exhibit higher levels of engagement with social media.

While parents may forge connections with their teens on social media in order to passively observe them, many are also actively engaging with their children and making their presence known. Half (50%) of parents who use social media (and who also have teens who use the sites) say they have commented or responded directly to something that was posted to their child’s profile or account. Mothers and fathers of children of all ages and across all demographic groups are equally as likely to engage with their child’s profile in this way.

“Teens, in turn, have mixed feelings about being friends with their parents on social networking sites like Facebook. Some teens like the fact that they are friends with their family members. Other young users prefer not to friend their parents, but do it anyway because it is expected from them. And yet others keep their profiles secret or restrict parents’ access to information,” said Sandra Cortesi, Director of the Youth and Media Project at the Berkman Klein Center and a contributor to this report.

The findings of the study are detailed in a new report called, “Parents, Teens and Online Privacy” that is the result of a collaboration between the Pew Internet Project and the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. The data are based on a nationally representative phone survey of 802 parents and their 802 teens ages 12-17, 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 includes quotes gathered through a series of exploratory in-person focus group interviews about privacy and digital media conducted by the Berkman Klein Center’s Youth and Media Lab between May and December 2011. The team conducted 16 focus group interviews with roughly 120 students.

About the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project

The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project is one of seven projects that make up the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan, nonprofit “fact tank” that provides information on the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world. The Project produces reports exploring the impact of the Internet on families, communities, work and home, daily life, education, health care, and civic and political life. The Project aims to be an authoritative source on the evolution of the Internet through surveys that examine how Americans use the Internet and how their activities affect their lives.

About the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society

The Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University is a research program founded to recognize, study, and engage the most difficult problems of the digital age and to share in their resolution in ways that advance the public interest. Founded in 1997, through a generous gift from Jack N. and Lillian R. Berkman, the Center is home to an ever-growing community of faculty, fellows, staff, and affiliates. Fundamental to its work is the study of the relationship between digital technologies and democratic values, including civic participation, access to knowledge, and the free flow of information. More information can be found at http://cyber.law.harvard.edu.

Media contacts

Mary Madden: mmadden@pewinternet.org and 202-419-4515

Access the survey and findings via the Pew Research Center’s website.

Report: From Credibility to Information Quality

The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University is pleased to share a substantial new report from the Youth and Media project:
“Youth and Digital Media: From Credibility to Information Quality“ by Urs Gasser, Sandra Cortesi, Momin Malik, & Ashley Lee.

Building upon a process- and context-oriented information quality framework, this paper seeks to map and explore what we know about the ways in which young users of age 18 and under search for information online, how they evaluate information, and how their related practices of content creation, levels of new literacies, general digital media usage, and social patterns affect these activities. A review of selected literature at the intersection of digital media, youth, and information quality—primarily works from library and information science, sociology, education, and selected ethnographic studies—reveals patterns in youth’s information-seeking behavior, but also highlights the importance of contextual and demographic factors both for search and evaluation.To access the full report, please visit: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2005272

Key Findings:

1. Search shapes the quality of information that youth experience online.
2. Youth use cues and heuristics to evaluate quality, especially visual and interactive elements.
3. Content creation and dissemination foster digital fluencies that can feed back into search and evaluation behaviors.
4. Information skills acquired through personal and social activities can benefit learning in the academic context.

“Youth and Digital Media: From Credibility to Information Quality” lays the foundation and raises questions for further explorations in this area. The report also encourages a public policy discussion on youth, digital media, and information quality issues. We hope you will take the time to review the report, to build upon it, and to share it with interested colleagues and networks.

We wish to thank all of our wonderful collaborators at the Berkman Center, our friends at the Havard Law School Library, and the participants of a workshop on information quality for valuable contributions and their important work in the field. The report builds upon research enabled by generous grants from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.

Available Material:

One Page Summary [PDF]: [YaM] From Credibility to Information Quality_1 Page Summary_02202012_FINAL

Executive Summary [PDF]: [YaM] From Credibility to Information Quality_Executive Summary_02202012_FINAL

Full Report [PDF]: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2005272

Podcast: [YaM] From Credibility to Information Quality_02222012_FINAL

Information Quality Infographic: Full Size Image

“Coached to Poach” Infographic: Full Size Image

“Use it or lose it” Blogpost: Link

Infographic: Coached to Poach

Based on focus group interviews with 120 students aged 12-18, we found that youth appropriate online information in personal, social and academic settings. One of the Lab’s summer interns created this infographic to characterize the debate that often surrounds youths’ copy-paste practices: ‘plagiarism and theft’ versus ‘sharing and remixing’.

With this graphic, we relate a more in-depth perspective of one side of this debate. Rather than punishing students for copying information, adults could approach copy-and-paste as a practice that, when done responsibly, can aid collaboration, creativity and information sharing. Moreover, copy-and-paste could play a part in creative remixing in the form of fan art, mashups and other creative uses of technology. Instead of focusing on punishment for copying information, this infographic encourages a dialog about the values and risks of sharing and remixing practices, appropriate attribution and creators’ rights.

Download full size image.

Learners’ Perspective on Digital Learning Resources

In order to capture the learners’ perspective on digital learning resources, the Youth and Media team asked young people to tell their own stories about technology and education. They use everything from cell phones, YouTube, and Wikipedia to learn about topics ranging from biology to dance and art history to guinea pigs. What’s more, these young learners are also teachers, using digital media to share their knowledge and skills with peers near and far. Interviewees include young people from middle school to college aged from the Boston/Cambridge area. Some of the young people appearing in this video are Youth Ambassadors at the Youth and Media Lab.

Freshman Seminar

Workshop with Baruch College, Freshman Seminar, November, 2011, New York City, NY:

The Youth and Media Team is collaborating on a series of news literacy projects with Geanne Rosenberg, professor at Baruch College and the City University of New York’s Graduate School of Journalism and faculty associate at the Berkman Klein Center. On November 3^rd and 9^th, The YaM Team and Professor Rosenberg led a freshmen seminar at Baruch College in Manhattan on the topic of searching, evaluating, and sharing online news content. The seminar, a result of several months of collaborative planning between the YaM team, Professor Rosenberg, and other Baruch faculty, was delivered to the college’s entire entering class of some 400 students. Students were engaged with questions such as: What online news content do you trust and why? How can the Internet be a boon and hazard in our search for information? How can the information you share online reflect your own professional credibility?

The YaM Team and Professor Rosenberg continue to plan projects on these topics and are designing an innovative program for high school aged youth in the future. Look below for photos from our trip to Baruch College.

Curricular Modules

The Youth and Media team has focused on prototyping and field-testing curricular modules (through workshops and in-person engagement) to support youth in activities of peer learning¹ (encouraging youth to be co-teachers/learners) and to assist educators in practice. The primary goal of our curricular development has been to build modules with the following characteristics:

Modularity: modules are learning activities that form the basis of Youth and Media workshops. They can be deployed individually or strung together in a series.
Scalability: most modules are designed to last one hour, though they can be adapted to both longer and shorter periods. Moreover, while most modules are designed with a specific age range and skill level in mind, one of our key objectives is to draw from our initial testing and deployment experiences and tailor different versions of each module to specific audiences. For instance, the module “News Stories” may focus more on functional navigation skills with a younger audience and higher-level discussion about the media ecosystem with an older one.
Adaptability: modules should be adaptable to formal and informal learning environments. We aim to create fun, engaging learning experiences for informal contexts such as summer camps and afterschool or not-for-credit academic programs (all of which are especially appropriate for peer learning). However, given our concern for classroom instruction and initial feedback from teachers, we are striving to design modules for formal curricular purposes as well.
Optimization: people using the modules are encouraged to tailor language and/or specific topics to the particular interests of the learner.

¹Some of the workshops, led by Youth and Media youth ambassadors, and the underlying curricular modules serve as “proof of concept” demonstrations for how youth can successfully engage with important issues identified in youth-related research by fostering greater awareness and reflection. They also demonstrate how youth can engage their peers in the exploration of such issues. Unlike conventional learning models, which are typically premised on a one-to-many transfer of knowledge from the teacher to learners, peer teaching/learning focuses on ways that youth can engage one another in a many-to-many process as both teachers and learners. Previous research has shown, for instance, that pairs of skilled peers teaching less skilled learners out-performed pairs of adults teaching children, and that peer teaching is especially successful in tasks that require discussion of issues.

All our modules are available on the DLRP: dlrp.berkman.harvard.edu

Two central concepts that have informed the modules are information quality/news literacy and social-emotional learning/online relationships, respectively.

Core

Euan Brown

Euan Brown studied at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Euan primarily works in illustration and digital art, and hopes to become an illustrator and comic book creator. Euan is interested in online creative content and the value of online discussion. At Youth and Media Euan has created illustrations that were then paired with YaM reports, briefs, and slides.

Sandra Cortesi

Sandra Cortesi is a Fellow at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University and the Director of the Youth and Media project. She is responsible for coordinating the Youth and Media's policy, research, and educational initiatives, and is leading the Digitally Connected collaboration between the Berkman Klein Center and UNICEF. At Youth and Media Sandra works closely with talented young people and lead researchers in the field as they look into innovative ways to approach social challenges in the digital world. Together with Berkman Klein Center’s Executive Director Urs Gasser and the Youth and Media team, she focuses on topics such as inequitable access, information quality, risks to safety and privacy, skills and digital literacy, and spaces for participation, civic engagement, and innovation. Sandra supports the following Berkman Klein projects and initiatives: Youth and Media, Student Privacy Initiative, Digital Problem-Solving Initiative, Digital Literacy Resource Platform (DLRP), Harmful Speech Online, and Coding for All. See publications here.

Urs Gasser

Urs Gasser is the Executive Director of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society and Professor of Practice at Harvard Law School. Urs has written and edited a number of books on digital technology and is the co-author (with John Palfrey) of Born Digital: How Children Grow Up in a Digital Age. His current Youth and Media research projects explore how youth engage with emerging technologies (such as AI), how we can build healthy communities and deal with cyberbullying, and how we address some of the opportunities and challenges that emerge when youth engage with the digital economy (e.g., how youth participate in online activities that cultivate social, cultural, and economic capital).

Maya Malik

Maya Malik, MSSW earned their Masters of Science in Social Work from the Columbia School of Social Work, focusing on International Social Welfare and Rights for Immigrants and Refugees through program design, research, and evaluation. Mx. Malik previously worked as a Training and Communications Coordinator for the Women’s Health Unit (WHU) at Boston Medical Center supporting the multi-state, NIDA funded, HEALing Communities Study. Throughout their academic career, Maya has taught low income youth of color in different communities in the United States and India utilizing arts-based learning techniques and created interactive educational programming to address the negative effects of poverty, trauma, and structural oppression on attainment for students in marginalized communities. Maya is entering McGill School of Social Work’s doctoral program this fall to research how to utilize arts based Youth-Led Participatory Research (YPAR) methods to work with young Black American girls who have been justice-involved to improve educational intervention programs. Here you can find blogs written by Maya about their time working in rural India.

Rebecca Smith

Rebecca Smith is an artist and animator currently based in Boston, MA. Born and raised in the north shore of Massachusetts, she graduated from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design with a BFA in animation in May 2019. She has been inspired all her life by visual media including art, film, and fashion, and has a passion for storytelling. She brings these inspirations together in her animation, which uses bright colors and contrasting textures to tell stories about coming of age and finding a place in the world. She focuses primarily on 2D-animated and character-based work, but also uses mixed-media techniques that fuse digital and traditional media. Her work has been featured in several shows at MassArt including the ReStore show (2017), the Animation Sophomore/Junior Show (2017), the Animation All School Show (2018), and Squealing Pegs (2017&2018). Outside of MassArt her work has shown in the MAST film festival (2019).

Claudia Thomas

Claudia Thomas studied animation at Massachusetts College of Art and Design. She is an animator and illustrator who works digitally in both 2D and 3D. She is fascinated by the endless artistic possibilities created by digital media and the Internet and hopes to explore them in her work. At Youth and Media, she creates illustrations and animations to accompany reports and other media. See some of her illustrations at https://www.claudiathomas.art.

In close collaboration with:

Other: