The
fact that the phrase generation gap
isn’t used much anymore does not mean that the phenomenon has disappeared.
In a recent study for the Annenberg Public Policy Center titled “The Internet
and the Family 2000: The View from Parents/The View from Kids,” Dr. Joseph
Turow found that when it comes to the intersecting realms of family privacy
and the Internet, a significant generation gap exists.
Turow, the Robert Lewis Shayon Professor of Communication
at the Annenberg School, found that a significant number of kids don’t
have a problem with revealing sensitive family information in exchange
for a free gift—while parents, not surprisingly, are less keen on the
idea. Based on a survey conducted this past winter of 304 children aged
10-17 and 1001 parents (having at least one child between 8 and 17), Turow
and Lilach Nir, a doctoral student in communication, found that:
• American kids (aged 10-17) are considerably more likely than parents to say that it’s OK to give out family information to commercial Web sites in exchange for a free gift—especially if they’re told how much the gift is worth. (Examples of that information include how many days of work their parents have missed, the size of their own allowance, the names of their parents’ favorite stores, and what their parents do on weekends.) Asked if they would answer these types of questions in return for a “great free product,” 22 percent said Yes; 63 percent initially said No; and most of the rest said their answer depended on the product or the information in question. But when the interviewer said that the theoretical product was worth $25, $50 or $100, another 23 percent said Yes, bringing the total of potential bean-spillers up to 45 percent. While the percentage of parents who immediately said they would divulge sensitive information was almost as high (18 percent) as in the children’s group, “only” another 11 percent (making a total of 29 percent) said Yes if the gift was worth $25, $50 or $100.
• Almost half (46 percent) of U.S. parents are not aware that Web sites use “cookies” to gather information on users without their knowing it.
• Sixty-one percent of parents say they are more concerned about what children between the ages of 13 and 17 might reveal to marketers than they are about younger children. (And rightly so: 39 percent of the older kids said they would give up personal information, as opposed to 16 percent of those aged 10-12.)
• Forty-one percent of online parents with kids aged 8-17 and 36 percent of kids aged 10-17 report having experienced “incidents of disagreement, worry or anger” in their family over kids’ releasing such information to the Web.
On the positive side, 89 percent of parents believe
that access to the Internet helps their children with schoolwork (up from
84 percent two years ago); 74 percent of parents believe that children
who don’t have Internet access are at a disadvantage compared to their
wired peers; and 51 percent of parents believe that the Internet is a
“safe place for my children to spend time” (up from 40 percent two years
ago).
Ironically, concerns about invasions of family privacy
led to the 1998 Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), in which
Congress ordered the Federal Trade Commission to regulate data collection
on sites targeting children under 13. The good news is that, as of this
past April, Web sites must now get parents’ permission before requesting
information from children under 13. The bad news is that the rules do
not apply to children 13 and older.
Parents, Turow stressed in an interview, should “talk
to their kids about the nature of what their family thinks information
privacy is,” though he also noted that there is often a discrepancy between
parents and kids about what was—or was not—said.
In addition to arguing that Web sites should be prohibited
from offering free gifts to kids in exchange for information, Turow urged
passage of a “Web Freedom of Information Act” that would allow individuals
“to know what Web sites know about them.” After all, he noted, “the smallest
bits of information divulged by kids about their home life” can be used
to create “detailed portraits” of a family’s lifestyle. While such portraits
may be inaccurate, they can nonetheless “profoundly influence how marketers,
banks, insurance companies, government agencies and other organizations
treat family members.”
One question still puzzles Turow. If, unlike you,
your kids are willing to give out personal information online, what does
that mean? Is it a generational difference or a “maturational” one—one
that will gradually disappear as the kids get older and wiser?
“I don’t know the answer to that,” he says, “but I think
it’s a really important question.”
