ABSTRACT
Although research has identified a range of opportunities, risks, and harms related to online social networking, the public debate on online risks follows a set pattern by which members of older age groups (parents, regulators) hold a picture of members of younger age groups (teenagers, digital natives) at a uniformly high level of risk. Perceptions of online risk, however, are prone to third-person effects in which individuals perceive risks to be more apparent in others than themselves. This study investigated third-person effects across age groups to further our understanding of the set positions found in current public debate. Multivariate analysis was used to compare adolescent and adult users’ personal and third-person perceptions of common psycho-social risks associated with social networking engagement in a sample of 506 UK-based Facebook users (53% male; 13–77 years). Results indicated that rates of exposure to online vulnerabilities were similar for both age groups. However, differences in adult and adolescent perceptions of risk highlighted apparent mismatches between reported exposure to risk and an individual’s perceptions, with adults demonstrating lower personal perceptions and higher third-person perceptions of risk than their adolescent counterparts. The research considers the implications of risk perception on an individual’s online vulnerability.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 In line with effect sizes in previous studies (e.g. Paradise and Sullivan Citation2012), a sample size target of > 350 was calculated for medium-sized effects (ƒ = .2) in a repeated-measures ANOVA with power = .90 at α = .01 using G*Power3 (Faul et al. Citation2007).