Jacob Williams
Research Mentor: Lauren Girouard
Mentor Department: Psychology, LSA
Author(s): Jacob Williams, Lauren Girouard, Leyah Dizon, Brook Hester, Jillian Babcock
Session: Session 1 (9:00 AM – 9:50 AM)
Presentation Type: Oral Presentation
Abstract
This study explores whether children’s beliefs about private information ownership are related to their behaviors and justifications when seeking private information about others online. In a study of 95 6 to 13-year-old children (Mage=8.98, 43.8% girls), children were introduced to a fictional online social media site called Zingo. Children were asked to imagine that their date of birth was posted to Zingo and asked whether they thought that information now belonged to Zingo and to the Internet. Children were then asked whether they had looked for information about famous people and non-famous people. Finally, children were asked whether they thought it was okay that personal information about each kind of person could be found online and why. Two independent coders analyzed children’s justifications for six theoretically derived themes (IRR=88). Older children were more likely than younger children to have accessed personal information online (p<.001). Children indicated that it is okay to look up information about famous people (91.6%) at significantly higher rates than non-famous people (69.5%, p<.001). With age, children increasingly reference the responsibility famous (34% of responses) and non-famous people (36%) have to safeguard their own information (p=.015). Interestingly, children were less likely to believe that Zingo could own their private information once posted if they had previously looked up famous people online (p=.004), and this was particularly true of older children (p=.024). Despite understanding that people bear some responsibility in safeguarding their personal information online, children as old as 13 years of age struggle with foundational concepts of data ownership, such as the ability of social media sites to assume ownership of personal data. Notably, children who have more frequently accessed others’ private information show decreased understanding of these concepts, suggesting that experience crystallizes their belief that data stewardship is personal.
