MTV probes the privacy issues on Digital media

The daily vocabulary of the youth now has words like tweet, poke, hashtag, sexting, torrent, tag, BBM etc that many of us don’t even understand in its entirety. This disparity comes from the fact that the youth live in a different world. 85% of the youth log on to social media platforms more than once a day. More than 75% of the youth get on the internet to email, watch videos, listen to music and surf for things that personally interest them at least once every day. No surprises why MTV calls this generation “Digital Socialites.” 

MTV & TNS recently conducted a study to understand the lives of this generation that compulsively lives on the internet1. Social media, we found, is a favorite across all age groups. 26-29 year olds are high on emailing with 92% saying they send emails throughout the day while only 42% of 15-24 year olds email on a daily basis. Multimedia usage and downloads loses its appeal for the older lot. Interestingly, boys are more social than girls on digital media. While 63% of the men say that they’re on social media because they can meet new people and make new friends, a whopping 67% of the women disagree with them and are not happy about random ‘friend requests’.  

What’s interesting is that the youth are aware that social media threatens their privacy. The key question to ask here is do they care? 94% agree that personal information put out on social media can be harmful if not handled correctly. And 90% of 26-29 year olds share information on social media only after much deliberation. But, only 75% of 15-24 years do so indicating that the younger ones are more open to share their private life with the world.  

Question of concern is that does this awareness of threat to privacy stop them from sharing personal stuff? Not really, the digital world is too addictive to let go! With such a strong affinity in spite of its drawbacks, there is definitely an opportunity for brands to drive awareness about safe use of digital platforms amongst the youth.

By MTV Insights Studio

MTV Insights Studio brings you the latest from the life of the youth. This unique understanding comes from being a part of their lives every day and not from watching them from the outside. The statistics and trends are taken from various MTV youth studies including Age of Sinnocence, Digital Socialite, Recreation Redefined and discussions on MTV iSpeak. The researches capture responses from 15-24 years across 10+ cities across India. MTV iSpeak is a network of youth in age of 18-24 years from colleges across 10 cities provides a continuous connect to the youth life. For more youth trends, please click on www.mtvplay.in or write to us at insights@mtvindia.com

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