Pew: 71% of Young Adults Change Online Privacy Settings


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Pew: 71% of Young Adults Change Online Privacy Settings

auth_pers_may10.jpgThe same day on which Facebook has rolled back changes to its default privacy settings, Pew Research has released a report on privacy and reputation among young adults that has some interesting results. Though many have proposed that older generations of Internet users are more concerned with privacy online, Pew's study found that young adults aged 18 to 29 are more likely to monitor their online reputations by changing settings and deleting items on social networks.


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According to the study, 71% of young adults have changed their default social network privacy settings to limit the information they share with others, compared to just over half of the users aged 50-64. Additionally, 47% of young adults said they have deleted comments from their profiles, and 41% say they have removed their names from photos that they were tagged in.

71% of young adults have changed their default social network privacy settings to limit the information they share with others, compared to just over half of the users aged 50-64.
"Search engines and social media sites now play a central role in building one's identity online," said Mary Madden, lead author of Pew's report, "Many users are learning and refining their approach as they go-changing privacy settings on profiles, customizing who can see certain updates and deleting unwanted information about them that appears online."

As the report concludes, adults aged 18-29 are far more worried about preserving the integrity of their reputations online, and are, in fact, less trusting of the networks that host their data. 28% of young adults said they can "never" trust these networks with their data - twice as many aged 50-64 who echoed this sentiment.

The disparages between privacy concerns of younger and older generations of social network users could have a bit to do with the complexity that some networks place on their privacy controls. Facebook announced efforts today to make privacy control much easier to understand, which could increase control changes from older and less active users.

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