Facebook: 5 Years Later Zach Broderick Anna Merport Michelle Strulovic

Introduction  What is Facebook?  Previous Studies in  “Rules of engagement” and social norms have not been established  People reveal a lot of personal information  Has anything changed?

Methodology  Online Survey  Wrote our own software to collect data  Used mailing lists  Problems:  Selection bias (volunteer bias)  Non-coverage  Non-response bias

Log-In Frequency

Info Categories

Concern for Privacy on FB 2008 Privacy Importance Distribution t = 9.20, df = 97, P <.0001

Concern for Privacy on FB 2008 Concern for Privacy on FB 2005 t = 3.18, df = 97, P =.002

 Are there any photos of you on Facebook that you would not want a potential employer to see? Yes56.70% No43.30%  Have you ever been the victim of stalking, identity theft, or anything else negative because of Facebook? Yes4.10% No43.30%  Do you use the Facebook privacy settings that allows you to specify who can see/search your profile? Yes62%84.50% No38%15.50% ? z = 4.3, P <.0001

 Does the Facebook privacy allow them to share your information with third parties? Yes53%15.30% No 47%32.70% Don’t know52.00%  Are you aware that potential employers and university officials regularly scan Facebook profiles? Yes12.20% No 87.80% ?

 Do you plan to modify your profiles as a result of this survey? Yes12.20% No87.80%  Do you know everyone personally on your friends list? Yes36.55%56.70% No63.45%43.30% ? z = 4.50, P <.0001

The weird stuff…  Of those who rated Facebook privacy as very important:  95% had their picture up  45% had their dorm room on display  25% had their cell phone number  15% had all three  25% had their employer  1% had pic, dorm, cell, employer, home address  36.7% of respondents were aware that employers and school officials scanned FB profiles yet still had incriminating photos of themselves in their profiles.  4.1% of respondents who had bad photos but were not aware of employer snooping still said they were not going to modify their profiles after taking the survey.

Conclusion  Students are still woefully unaware of some of the privacy pitfalls of FB, and continue to engage in reckless information revelation  Few other solid conclusions possible