People often say that the young are not concerned about their privacy. That is a common belief because teenagers share their personal information on social media networks and they constantly text messages. Older folks do not understand young people’s lack of sufficient care towards their own privacy. Moreover, many worry that within a generation there will be no such a thing as privacy.
That statement, however, is not true and there are few reasons for that. First, statistics prove that the young are actually concerned about their privacy. According to a research conducted some years ago, teenagers value privacy as high as older people do. Another study funded by Microsoft, concluded that students in college are worried the most about their security and privacy.
Nevertheless, why do young people like to share so much personal information online? As a start, teenagers are not that good when it comes to estimating the action-and-consequence effects. But despite the fact that they are not so worried about their security now, in future that is most likely to change.
The second reason is the huge role that technology plays in our modern lives. Today it is hard to imagine our daily rounds without technological devices. That is because many of them are very helpful and highly functional.
Also, technology eliminates some aspects of life and communication which usually makes us think twice. For example, if you are sitting in a hall full of people you wouldn’t say things and opinions that you would usually share on the Internet. That is due to the fact that in the online world you are not physically facing a group of hundreds or even thousands of people. When you see such a big crowd, your consequence-conscious mind awakens. That effect cannot be triggered when you are looking at your computer screen. That is why many of us are actually braver on the Internet and say things they wouldn’t normally say.
Last but not least, the young’s ideas of privacy are different. For them privacy is not only connected with keeping information in secrecy, but also with controlling it. Today, because of all the technological advances, it is almost impossible to protect your personal details form everyone. However, people can decide who can see their information. Their pages on the social networks can be accessed by some users, but not by all of them. In addition, people can now share their personal information with some companies and hide it from others. Therefore, we don’t need to isolate from the online world in order to protect our privacy. Instead, we should set some limits and control the information flow.
