Common Sense, the national nonprofit organization dedicated to helping kids and families thrive in the digital world, released the results of a new survey of parents and teens on the subjects of privacy and social media sites.
Key findings of the survey include:
More than nine in 10 parents and teens think it's important that sites clearly label what data they collect and how it will be used.
The majority of teens (69 percent) and parents (77 percent) say it is "extremely important" for sites to ask permission before selling or sharing their personal information. The vast majority (97 percent of parents and 93 percent of teens) agree that this is at least "moderately" important.
Very few people think sites do a good job of explaining what they do with users' information. Only a third of teenagers (36 percent) and a quarter of parents (25 percent) agree that social networking sites and apps do a good job of explaining what they do with users' data.
Most parents and teens are concerned about ad targeting by social media sites. Eighty-two percent of parents and 68 percent of teens are at least "moderately" worried that social networking sites use their data to allow advertisers to target them with ads.
Both parents and teens have taken steps to address their privacy. About eight in 10 teens (79 percent) have changed their privacy settings on a social networking site to limit what they share with others. Slightly more parents (86 percent) say they have done the same for their own privacy settings.
The survey can be viewed in its entirety here.
