Teens "Privacy" Online

Privacy. Americans want it. Teens crave it. And someone is always infringing on their rights to it.

Susan Barnes’ article, “ A privacy paradox: Social networking in the United States” touches on the problems surrounding teens involvement with social networking sites and their disregard for keeping personal information private. She found that “students wanted to keep information private, but did not seem to realize Facebook is a public space.”  These social networking sites are a part of teens everyday life; a live diary for them to socialize and express themselves in. While reading this article I couldn’t help but remember how important it was for me at 15 that my Myspace page reflected “who I was” by adding my favorite songs and picking a background that was totally awesome. To me, Myspace was a place to post pictures, show my top friends, write song lyrics and talk to boys.


So with those posted, intimate and personal details of my life at 15, came the entitlement of privacy I felt I deserved, not to my friends on Myspace, but to my parents. In reality how private are teens Facebook and Myspace pages? Teens parents had to deal with their parents snooping through written diaries and journals, so does that mean it’s only fair they get to do the same with their kids online journals? Teens know they have to be careful about what they post because parents, schools, universities, and future employers are looking at their pages and deciding their future, without ever really giving them consent to do so. “A social exchange between friends has now become a way for universities to monitor student behavior.”

So with this “live diary” are teens giving too much personal information out, and endangering themselves? The topic of online predators comes up when discussing this for obvious reasons. But, like Barnes, I agree that the protection of children from online predators is only one aspect of the “privacy paradox”. The idea that parents need to be educated and in turn educate their kids about online privacy makes the most sense. I know from my own experience, posting my address to Myspace never happened because of the extensive knowledge of online predators I attained from my parents and school. I’m curious if my peers feel the same way, because even at 15, I knew better than to post my phone number or address online.

 Is Susan Barnes article, written in 2006, already dated in comparison to todays internet privacy standards? According to this article, teens are more concerned about their privacy than adults might think. A Pew Research Center study of 800 teens found that about half turned off location and tracking features in certain apps on their phones, and avoided downloading an app at all if they felt it requested too much information or data. Teens today have grown up with technology and understand, unlike Barnes’ teens, that if it is online, it is in a “public space” where privacy is a loose term.