[Dave Birch] I was preparing a presentation that included a couple of remarks about generational issues when it comes to privacy: what Bill Dutton of the Oxford Internet Institute called more “nuanced and textured” views of privacy. This led me back to an article I’d read noting teenagers generally don’t think twice about including their first names and photos on their personal online profiles, but most refrain from using full names or making their profiles fully public, which I now understand more fully after hearing listening to Bill. This and similar news reports were linked to a survey from The Pew Internet and American Life Project which found that two-thirds of teenagers using social networking have restricted access to their profiles in some fashion, such as by requiring passwords or making them available only to friends on an approved list. Social networking sites, such as MySpace and Facebook (or, indeed Linkedin) have responded by offering users more controls over how much they make public and warning them about revealing too much. So perhaps the next generation are not ignoring privacy, but dealing with it in a new way. After all, only 1 in 50 puts their mobile phone number online. Although four-fifths put their photo online and more girls than boys do so. I’m no expert (as may be evident) but they presumably don’t see their image as a private part of their identity and, also presumably, want control over it by posting an image that they choose, that is under their control.
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