Young Adults Worry as Much About Privacy Like Older Adults

US young adults seem to worry as much about their online privacy like the older adults, only difference being that they are naive, a study has revealed.

Hot trends in online social networking, geolocation services, and firing off musings in Twitter messages are not a sign that privacy is less important to the younger generation than to its predecessors, according to the research.

POCKET To Protect Children�s Privacy
Virginia Research team invents POCKET which safeguards personal information of children’s during web surfing.

"We are not arguing that young adults don't do foolish things on Facebook," said study co-author Joseph Turow, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Annenberg School for Communication.

"Some of them may do silly things, but a huge percentage of them care. We find there is rather little difference between young adults and people who are older when you talk to them about privacy."

The real difference lay in how much adults aged 18 through 24 believed their online privacy was protected by law, he said.

WHO Examines Media, Internet Role In Handling Flu Pandemic
The Internet had a disruptive impact on the handling of the flu pandemic by fanning speculation and rumours, officials said as a world health probe on Tuesday examined communications on swine flu.

"The general population thinks the government protects them more than it does, but young adults even more so," Turow told AFP.

Factors that may prompt young adults to be more cavalier with information online include peer pressure to be part of Internet social networks and natural tendencies toward risky behavior.

Do Not Rely on Child Health Advice on Internet
UK researchers say that browsing the internet in the hope of finding a good advice for your child's medical problem is a waste of time as medical information on various sites is unreliable.

Turow cautioned that more research regarding what older adults do online is needed for a true comparison of the behavior of different age groups on the Internet.

"It is possible older adults do... foolish things," Turow said.

South Korea Includes "Fatigue System" to Curb Internet Gaming Addiction
South Korea Monday announced tougher rules to combat Internet gaming addiction including a fatigue system encouraging players to switch off.

"They may not show up naked as much but they may get in trouble saying bad things about a boss or with a picture of them golfing when they are supposed to be off sick."

Young adults need education about the degree to which their online privacy is legally guarded and security settings at social-networking websites should be tight by default, study authors suggested.

The study by Annenberg and the law school at the University of California, Berkeley, was based on a random sampling of 1,000 adults surveyed by telephone last year.

Source-AFP
SAV