Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking shares research that found most people perceive Facebook to harmfully affect other people, but when it comes to themselves they are not affected by the same negative effects.
Angela Paradise and Meghan Sullivan conducted a study in relation to Facebook’s harmful effects of people’s perceived negative effects of Facebook use on themselves and others.
To analyze the perception of Facebook, they provided a survey to 357 undergraduates in the Northeastern U.S. The study asked questions about participants’ Facebook activity, perceived negative effects towards others and towards themselves. The areas focused on, said to be affected by Facebook, were personal relationships, future employment, and privacy.
Through the third-person effect (TPE) theoretical framework, this study identifies undergraduate’s use and perceived effects of Facebook. TPE states that people perceive themselves as immune to the negative effects of media and believe that others are more vulnerable.
When it came to the perception of later employment, participants believed for others’ job opportunity to be reduced, while theirs remained unaffected. When it came to the privacy of others, participants believed that Facebook had it reduced. However, they did not think to have their own privacy as affected. The one exception was when it came to personal relationships. There was no difference found between negative effects on self and others for personal relationships.
Older teens are more likely to share certain information about themselves online
In 2012, a survey was taken of teen social media users and what they post on their profiles.
Older teens (ages 14-17) are sharing more than just photos of themselves. Cites, like Facebook, are created to share such information. It is encouraged to add more and more information about oneself for others to see. Among teen social media users:
92% post their real name
91% post a photo of themselves
84% post their interests, such as movies, music, or books they like
82% post their birth date
71% post their school name
71% post the city or town where they live
62% post their relationship status
53% post their email address
24% post videos of themselves
20% post their cell phone number (Madden et. al., 2013)
For the most part, boys and girls share a similar amount of information on social media profiles. However, it was found that boys are more prone to share their cell phone number than girls. The older teens of ages 14-17 were found to share more information than those of ages 12-13.
Social media participation calls for users to share their interests and information. Facebook has provided areas for users to share about themselves, such as their favorite movie, most liked quotes and even name pronunciation. It is accessible to anyone else on Facebook, unless privacy settings are managed.
On the graph to the right is the difference in personal information shared in 2006 vs. 2012.
Girls at the age of 15 are not too focused sharing information about themselves on Facebook. For them, Facebook is used primarily for the social aspect. They are more likely to ignore factors like friending people, privacy settings, and filling out personal information. Reputation management is what is important not profile management. However, the older the females were in the study the more they cared about their photos and how many likes they got.
The blow-up of information sharing on Facebook among teens is due to many variables. Facebook continues to update and add more and more tools for its users. One could argue that it is information overload. Facebook users start at a young age and these social media protocols are only normal to them.
Survey found that most teens have looked for outside advice about how to control online privacy
A national survey was conducted that found 70% of teens have sought outside advice about how to organize online privacy. The survey was done over the phone by asking 802 parents and 802 teens between the age of 12 and 17. Facebook was one of the main social networks focused on.
When teens look for help 42% said they have talked to friends or peers, 41% have have talked to a parent, and 37% asked a brother, sister, or cousin. Participants of the ages 12 and 13 tend to ask for more assistance in managing their privacy from their parents. It was also found the girls are more likely to ask for help than boys.
With the increase in social media use, the awareness of online privacy has been spread as well. Most teens reported that they usually resort to their own knowledge to manage privacy settings. Apps have tried to make it easy for users to do so. When creating a new account on social media or any online website, usually a tutorial is found on how to manage privacy settings.
Those looking for advice are more inclined to limit what their friends or followers can see within their own personal friend networks. On the other hand, those who do not seek advice believe m most of their friends are revealed to the same information.
Many parents are concerned with their children’s online use and representation. Facebook comes with major privacy risks for its users. They are curious about how teens gain such skills to manage online privacy. This research was done to see how much assistance young online users are getting. They are not only opening themselves to the rest of the world, but the rest of the world to themselves.
Citations
Madden, M., Lenhart, A., Cortesi, S., Gasser, U., Duggan, M., Smith, A., & Beaton, M. (2013, May 21). Part 1: Teens and Social Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech. Retrieved from http://www.pewinternet.org/2013/05/21/part-1-teens-and-social-media-use/
Media, Use.
This was an interesting ePortfolio addressing interesting researches about interesting topics. The headline and the subheads are generally explanatory, except it might have been better to describe what that "certain information" might be for the first subhead. Also, the headline might be better if it just said "they" instead of "peers" because peers feels like it's excluding the individual users.
ReplyDeleteThere are other confusing parts about the ePortfolio. It felt like each part of the ePortfolio that was subheaded was consisting of very different information. It was hard to follow through the whole thing and focus. It didn't feel like I was reading one whole ePortfolio trying to talk about a single topic, rather it felt like a collection or combination of three different researches. I think it'd be better to somehow connect the three ideas and try to make a smoother transition between the different researches, so that you are using those researches to try to explain or talk about a single topic in your ePortfolio.
I also think that the graph should be more descriptive. For example, the title should start with whatever measurement the graph is trying to display (I assume it's percentages, but if you don't state it, I can never be sure).
Other than that, I learned a lot from your article, as you did a great job describing and explaining the results of the researches. The font, for some reason, seems smaller than normal, but it's not a big deal. You did a good job using short paragraphs, images, a graph, and embedded links.
Lastly, I found it surprising that younger teens were more likely to ask for outside sources for help managing their online privacy, as I thought that the younger you are, the less you cared about privacy. I don't know if you did this on purpose, but after two negative news regarding usage of Facebook, I thought it was nice that your last research that you used to conclude your ePortfolio was more or less, on the positive side -- that teenagers are more aware and care about their prviacy.
As I did more research on this topic, I found an article that further strengthens the results from your first research, where people repeatedly reported that the longer they used Facebook, the worse they felt: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-23709009