In marked contrast to the idea that attitudes toward privacy are dramatically evolving, new US consumer survey findings out this morning from the Pew Internet Project show that people young and old on social networks are actively seeking privacy and more actively managing their profiles and interactions to protect their reputations. (The data were drawn from a telephone survey of just over 2,000 US adults in 2011.)
As the slide below indicates the majority of social network users surveyed have their settings either “partially private” or “friends only.”
There’s a bit of gender gap, however, with women tending to be more private than men on social networks.
Paralleling my own experience, de-friending is on the rise, as are tag and comment deletions as part of a larger project of “reputation management” on social networks, according to Pew.
In a smaller but related online survey (n=514 US adults) Insight Strategy Group found what amounts to hostility toward brands and marketers trying to reach people on social networks. Here are the high-level findings (verbatim):
- 64% hate when a company finds them through their social networking profile
- 62% hate that companies market to them based on their social networking use
- 60% of people agree that it is annoying when a company uses Facebook and Twitter to communicate with them
- 58% agree that companies utilizing social networking is invasive because it is a space meant for people socializing
These survey responses are consistent with, though more extreme than results of other surveys conducted in the past. It’s not clear how representative this group of respondents was or is. Regardless, these two sets of findings are bad news for social networks, in their capacity as marketing channels that mine or expose user data for advertiser exploitation.
March 10th, 2012 at 12:43 am
[...] two sets of 2012 survey data from the Pew Internet Project. The first one, about privacy and social network settings, was released a couple of weeks ago. The slide below indicates the majority of social network users [...]
March 10th, 2012 at 4:36 pm
[...] two sets of 2012 survey data from the Pew Internet Project. The first one, about privacy and social network settings, was released a couple of weeks ago. As the slide below indicates, the majority of social network [...]
March 20th, 2012 at 9:22 pm
[...] “ambient discovery” apps? Only time will tell. As for now, a 2012 Pew Internet Project study shows that the majority of consumers prefer to have their social media platforms primarily centered [...]