How Older And Younger Millennials Differ In Their Approach To Online Privacy And Security

Hide My Ass! (HMA) commissioned a nationwide survey to find out what US internet users want in terms of security and privacy and what they do to protect their own privacy and security when they are online. The main results revealed a striking disconnect between what people want and what they do while a deeper look uncovered some intriguing differences between older and younger millennials.

This is the second article in a series examining attitudes and actions about online security and privacy among different demographic groups. The first article looked at differences between men and women and the third did the same for the baby boomers and everyone else.

HMA is a VPN (virtual private network) service provider. VPNs hide an internet user’s identity, location and internet activity by encrypting their data and routing their internet connection through multiple IP addresses and remote servers. At the time of this writing HMA’s network included over 100,000 IP addresses and more than 900 servers in over 300 locations around the world.

HMA summarized the results of their survey with an attractive infographic and a more detailed report. The key take-away is simple and straightforward. While most people want more internet security and privacy, they do very little to make use of the tools and techniques that are available to give them what they want.

The survey found that 70% of consumers say they restrict their level of social media use in order to avoid exposing personal information. However, only 25% enable strict privacy restrictions on the social media platforms they use. Likewise, 67% say they want additional layers of security while only 9% use email encryption programs, 11% use a VPN and 13% use two-factor authorization.

In “How Men And Women Differ In Their Approach To Online Privacy And Security " I pointed out possible limitations in the data that lead to the recommendation that it would be best to consider what follows in terms of likely trends rather than verified statistical regularities.

Millennials and social media

In “Report Shows More People Of All Ages Are Dating Online” I noted that there is a striking difference between the way younger (ages 18 to 24) and older (ages 25 to 34) millennials use online dating websites and apps. A similar difference appears when you delve into the data from the HMA survey. Millennials do not appear to be a uniform demographic group.

Millennials look like a uniform group if you limit your focus to basic internet and social media use.  More than two-thirds of all millennials (ages 18 to 34) in the HMA survey report that they spend three hours or more on the internet every day and more than a third spend 5 hours per day or more online. Millennials are also the age group that is most likely to use social media for personal reasons. Fifty-four percent of millennials use personal social media several times a day and 71% use social media for personal reasons at least once a day.

If you look more closely, however, interesting differences begin to emerge. For example, although both older and younger millennials use social media equally often for personal reasons, the younger millennials are less enamored with social media than their older counterparts. When asked to respond on a scale ranging from 1 (“This doesn’t describe me at all”) to 5 (“This describes me very well”) to the statement “My friends don’t need to see me to know what’s going on in my life, I post everything online”, 37% of older millennials, compared to only 20% of younger millennials, responded with a 4 or a 5.

The older millennials also valued social media interactions more highly than the younger. Thirty-five percent of the older millennials, as compared to 26% of the younger, somewhat or completely agreed with the statement “The number of followers, mentions, photos, etc. you have on social media, the more successful or popular you are.” The older millennials were also more likely (38%) than the younger (26%) to agree that they want to get a lot of interaction from their social media posts.

Although both older and younger millennials were equally likely to place few viewing restrictions on their social media posts, the younger millennials tended to be more careful about the information they share online. Seventy-five percent of the younger millennials, as opposed to only 53% of the older, said they are extremely unlikely to give away personal information such as their birth date, real-world address or social security number on a social media profile. In addition, 75% of the younger millennials, as compared to 49% of the older, said they are extremely unlikely to offer this information while chatting to a friend online.

Millennials and online security

Taken as a whole, millennials spend a lot of hours online and they use social media for personal reasons more than any other age group. However, younger millennials tend to be more careful about what they post online and they are less likely to equate their social media presence with personal popularity or success. How are these differences reflected in the ways older and younger millennials seek to protect their online privacy and security?

Older millennials (70%) were more likely than younger (59%) to report having experienced security problems such as having an account compromised or hacked, or accidentally installing spyware, malware or a virus. They were also more likely (29%) than younger millennials (17%) to ask people to remove information or untag pictures for privacy reasons. These differences may be due to the older millennials having had more opportunity to experience a security problem because they’ve spent more years online. 

Consistent with having experienced more security problems, the older millennials (74%) were more likely than the younger (62%) to want additional layers of privacy to protect their personal information online.

Something odd appears when you look at how the older and younger millennials react to security problems. While the older millennials were much more likely to report having experienced security problems, the younger millennials felt less confident (34%) than older (29%) that they were protected from a range of security problems such as phishing, pharming, or having their bank, computer, or online accounts hacked. The reaction of the older millennials makes even less sense when you consider that they had both the highest levels of confidence that they were protected online and the most reported security problems of any age group in the survey.

Although the younger millennials were less confident than the older that they were protected online, they were more likely than any other age group to report not using any strategies to protect themselves on the internet. When they took steps to protect themselves, the younger millennials tended to rely more on personal means of protection than the older millennials. For example, it was noted earlier that the younger are more careful than the older about the personal information they share online. In addition, younger millennials (68%) are more likely than older (61%) to make use of personalized privacy settings.

In contrast, the older millennials tended to rely marginally but consistently more on technical means of protection. Older millennials tend to make greater use of security and anti-virus software (46% vs. 42% for younger millennials), VPNs (14% vs. 12%), IP masking sites (12% vs. 7%), password managers (20% vs. 17%), privacy enhancing browser plug-ins (20% vs. 16%) and two-factor authentication (16% vs. 10%).

Comparing differences between millennials with differences between men and women

The differences between the older and younger millennials in the HMA survey mirror the differences between the men and women in the survey that were examined in “How Men And Women Differ In Their Approach To Online Privacy And Security”. Like the women, the younger millennials tend to be more careful about what they share online, tend to be less confident that they are protected online, and tend to rely more heavily on personal means of protection. Like the men, the older millennials tend to value social media more highly and post on social media more openly, tend to be more confident that they are protected online, and tend to rely more heavily on technical means of protection.

Given these similarities between the groups, it seems reasonable to draw the same conclusion about older and younger millennials that was drawn about men and women. Younger millennials appear to be more sensible than older millennials about protecting themselves online. This conclusion is reinforced by the millennials response when asked whether they agreed with the statement "There’s no real danger in sharing personal information online". Twenty-seven percent of the older millennials, compared to 18% of the younger, somewhat or completely agreed.

Women and younger millennials approach social media and online security and privacy in similar ways. However, it is likely that they do so for different reasons. Women in the US experience more sexual harassment and are much more likely to a victim of sexual assault than men. Women also perceive themselves to be at greater risk in general than men. For example, a Gallup poll conducted in 2014 found that more women (45%) than men (27%) did not feel safe walking alone at night in the area where they live. Women are likely to be more sensible about online security than men because they are more aware of the need for personal security in everything they do.

The persistent need to be aware of safety and risk is not likely to be the reason why younger millennials are more sensible about online security than their older brethren. The older millennials in the HMA study were between the ages of 25 and 34 in 2015. People in this age group were between 14 and 23 years old when Facebook launched in 2004. Facebook's initial target audience was college students and the college students of 2004 are the older millennials of today.

These people were the pioneers that had to figure out how to deal with security and privacy threats from social media platforms that went from nonexistent to ubiquitous in the space of a few years. The older millennials had nowhere to turn for role models that could show show them how to deal with these new threats to their online security. The younger millennials, who were 7 to 13 years old when Facebook launched, are probably more sensible about security and privacy because they learned from their older brothers and sisters.

What about you?

Is your online privacy and security adequately protected?

HMA not only documented the disconnect between what people want and what people do in regard to online security, they provided handy profiles of different types of internet security users. They also put together a short quiz so you can see what your security profile is.

What’s your profile? Would you like more protection? The tools are there, what are you going to do about it?

I would like to thank HMA for their generosity in giving me full access to the results of their survey without which the articles in this series would not have been possible.