Teens are sharing more information about themselves on social media sites than they did in the past, the numbers are quite impressive.  The recent trend which is driven by the fast evolution of the platforms teens use as well as modifying norms and regulations about how, when, where and why sharing the information is becoming a casual issue among teens and they are not concerned on the future implications of sharing information on social media.

The following graph shows the results from a report based on a survey of 802 teens that explores teen´s privacy management on social media sites and the results were really shocking.  Between 2006 and 2012 teens are sharing more information about themselves on social media than they did in the past.

• 91% post a photo of themselves, from 79% in 2006
• 71% post their school name from 49% in 2006
• 53% post their email address, from 29% in 2006
• 71% post their school name, from 49%

As we can see these numbers are reflecting teens´ behavior in terms of privacy concerns.  Are the teens aware of the risk that they are exposed? Apparently not, teens are only concern on sharing their social life to the world without even thinking about the consequences of this behavior.

As an overall, 40% of teen social media users mentioned that they are “very” concerned that part of the information they post in social media could be seen by third parties such as media advertisers or any other kind of publishers that are looking for targets in their businesses and teens are birds of prey as they are sharing publicly as much information as they can in the different social media sites.  In contrast with the 40% just 9% mentioned that they are “very” concerned about sharing the information online.

In addition to these results, parents were also part of the survey and they were ask about the amount of information that the advertisers can learn about their child´s behavior on social media and 81% of the parents mentioned to be “very” concerned about all the information that is online that could affect the integrity and security of their children.