Tweens' conceptions of privacy online: implications for educators

Abstract

There is considerable debate about young people's concern for privacy today, given their frequent use of social media to share information and other content about themselves and others. While researchers have investigated the online privacy practices of teens and emerging adults, relatively little is known about the attitudes and behaviors of younger youth. Drawing on interviews with 42 middle school students, or ‘tweens’, we explore how youth in this age group think about and manage privacy issues online, as well as the messages they report hearing from educators about online privacy. Our findings suggest that most tweens value privacy, seek privacy from both strangers and known others online, and use a variety of strategies to protect their privacy online. Further, tweens' online privacy concerns are considerably broader than the ‘stranger danger’ messages they report hearing from teachers. We discuss the educational implications of these findings.

Keywords:

• digital media
• privacy
• middle school students
• Internet safety
• citizenship curricula

Acknowledgements

The research reported in this article was funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The authors wish to thank the editors and referees of Learning, Media and Technology for their useful comments on earlier drafts of this article.

Notes

All participants were assigned pseudonyms.