When people say “privacy is dead”, it’s usually for one of two reasons. Either they truly believe that privacy is irrelevant or unachievable in today’s hyper-connected world or, more often, that not enough is being done to protect privacy when huge amounts of personal information are being posted online. Although I agree more could be done to protect privacy online, I believe that privacy is not dead, it’s just changing forms.
While it’s true that we’re sharing more information online than ever before, this doesn’t mean that we no longer care about privacy. On the contrary, some curious trends in how users share information on social media suggest we’re actually becoming more cautious.
Back in the early 2000s when the first social networks MySpace and Facebook appeared online, users were much more open with their personal information. Most had “public” profiles, which could be accessed by anyone, and few cared much about privacy.
But a host of high profile incidents have flashed through the mainstream media in the last decade. People have been fired from their jobs, had their secrets revealed, divorced and cyberbullied because of content on Facebook. So it’s no wonder that users began to understand the perils of poor management of their online privacy, and that Facebook users in particular have become more protective of their personal information. Recent research proved that people are increasingly limiting the data that is publicly shared with other Facebook users.
Generation Gap
Despite these trends, parents of today’s teens are particularly worried about the how their children manage their presence online. The 2013 PEW report on teens, social media and privacy, found that only 9% of teens were concerned about third-party access to their data on Facebook, while 80% of parents expressed high levels of concern about it.
