Are Social Media Privacy Issues Less of a Problem for Teens?

Anyone worried by privacy issues on social networking sites should ask themselves the question: is the next generation even going to be bothered by online security? A survey in the U.K. has discovered that 25% of teenagers have either hacked or attempted to hack their mates' Facebook accounts--despite four out of five of them admitting that they knew they were doing wrong.

Most of the 1,150 under-19-year-olds, who were questioned anonymously, said that they tried to crack their friends' passwords for fun. Some 21% said that they hoped to cause disruption (as Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg allegedly did at Harvard). A successful hack, however, was harder to manage than the kids had envisaged, with 82% saying they hadn't succeeded.

As regards Facebook and privacy issues, there's been a fair amount of keyboard pounding. The problem, it's implied, is with Zuckerberg's company ethos as he strives to eke as many dollars as possible out of the site. However, perhaps there is some meat in the argument that kids (tsk! these days, etc.) are less bothered about what actually constitutes a person's right to keep his private stuff just that.