Youth understandings of online privacy and security: A dyadic study of children and their parents

With youth increasingly accessing and using the internet, it is important to understand what they know about online privacy and security (OPS), and from where they gain this knowledge in order to best support their learning and online practices. Currently, the field of literature surrounding such youth understandings has gaps in depth and breadth that we aimed to address in this study. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 40 youth/parent dyads with youth in 3rd-12th grades in the United States to understand more about what youth know about OPS and how their parents attempt to influence this knowledge. We found that youth of all ages in the study could provide at least basic descriptions of both online privacy and online security and could give relevant examples of good and bad OPS choices. We also found that parents took a variety of approaches to influencing youth understandings and behavior, with most of those approaches relying on device monitoring and limiting use. However, parents who attempted to influence their children’s knowledge through conversations had children who demonstrated the most nuanced understandings. Our findings offer promising suggestions for parents, technology providers, and future research.