Children’s Information Disclosure Tendencies On Social Networks
Abstract
This descriptive study aims to identify children’s information disclosure tendency in
social network environments, their social network use habits and potential risky behaviors.
The study was conducted in Turkey’s three largest cities (Istanbul, Ankara, and Izmir), and
data were gathered with a survey through face-to-face meetings with randomly selected 524
children between 9 and 16 years old who used social networks, and their parents. The survey
consisted total of 38 Likert-type questions that 25 of them were asked to children in order to
learn about their social network memberships and habits, and 13 of them were asked to parents
in order to collect data about their demographics. Data were analyzed to make descriptive and
comparative analysis to see tendencies of children while using SNs and some factors influencing
information disclosure. Results show that as children’s age increases, the amount of Internet
usage also increases. The most frequently used social network site is Facebook. Although the
minimum age to create a profile on most social network sites is 13, results show that nearly
half of the children who reported having a profile were younger than that. Most of the children
share personal information such as mobile telephone numbers, home addresses and names of
family members with anyone who accessed the networking site. The researchers suggest that
parent’s and children’s awareness should be raised about the use of social networks to prevent
the potential negative consequences of sharing private information. Moreover, social network
developers must take necessary actions to protect children’s online privacy.
Keywords
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