Many teenagers avidly use social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook, and employ a variety of tools and techniques to manage their online identities.
Online social networks are spaces on the internet where users can create a profile and connect that profile to others to create a personal network. Social network users post content to their profiles and use tools embedded within social networking websites to contact other users.
Young adults and teenagers are among the most avid users of such websites.
Much of the media coverage surrounding young people and online social networks has focused on the personal information teens make available on these networks. Are they sharing information that will harm their future college or job prospects? Or worse, are they sharing information that puts them at risk of victimization?
A new survey and a series of focus groups conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project examines how teens understand their privacy through several lenses: by looking at the choices that teens make to share or not to share information online, by examining what they share, by probing for the context in which they share it and by asking teens for their own assessment of their vulnerability.