The following post is a summary of the information that was found as part of a research project for a journalism class. More information on other research projects in this class can be found on the course site HERE.
For this project, my partner and I designed a survey whose goal was to observe the difference, if any, between adults and college students on their opinions of cell phone privacy. We conducted the survey using Google Survey and collected 56 responses. Of these response, 21 were adults and 35 for college students.
In general we didn't find much difference between adults and teens. Out of the 21 adults surveyed, more than half (52%) owned a smartphone and 60% of college students owned one which is showing that the participating gap with these new devices is decreasing.
When asked how concerned they were that people can track their information when using a cell phone, neither groups were very concerned.
An interesting difference is that out of the 56 people surveyed, only 3 of them got into legal trouble over something that was said on their cell phone. More interestingly, all 3 of the participants were college students.
While most people were familiar with cell phone privacy features, it is important to note that more adults take advantage of registering their phone numbers on the National Do Not Call registry. However the majority between both groups were on some mass text message alert system. In addition,many people knew that when buying or selling a used cell phone that personal information is not automatically deleted from the device. But, most people in both age groups did not have knowledge of the E911 feature. which automatically tells law enforcement you address when you call for help.
Overall, the study performed shows that there isn't a significant difference of cell phone privacy issues with the 2 populations and the many of them understand some of the special features that are currently available on cell phones to aid in efficiency and privacy.
Three got into some sort of "trouble" for something they said on their phone? What kind of trouble? The survey results were interesting even if few differences were found between the two age groups. That alone would be something most would not expect. What is missing from the report is WHY this might be. Was it the particular sample or is there any info out there to suggest that the differences between age groups are shrinking?
ReplyDeleteI find it interesting that you did your project on phone privacy. As your research showed, many people do not think about privacy on the cell phone. I mean we understand that our phones can be tapped by the government but we never really take it to the next step. Also with the development of smart/mobile app phones the information stored on the phone goes far beyond phone records. Great topic!
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