Teens Online, Mobile Apps and Privacy Concerns: New Pew Internet Reports

by Mary Madden, Amanda Lenhart, Sandra Cortesi, Urs Gasser

Teen girl texting, US; Wikimedia Commons

Full Pew Internet Mobile Apps Privacy Report Online

As more teens gain access to smartphones and tablets that are optimized for mobile applications, teens, like their adult counterparts, have embraced app downloading. But many teen apps users have taken steps to uninstall or avoid apps out of concern about their privacy. Location information is considered especially sensitive to teen girls, as a majority of them have disabled location tracking features on cell phones and in apps because they are worried about others’ access to that information. Here are some of the key findings in a new survey of US teens ages 12-17:

58% of all teens have downloaded apps to their cell phone or tablet computer.
51% of teen apps users have avoided certain apps due to privacy concerns.
26% of teen apps users have uninstalled an app because they found out it was collecting personal information that they didn’t wish to share.
46% of teen apps users have turned off location tracking features on their cell phone or in an app because they were worried about the privacy of their information.
Among teen apps users, girls are considerably more likely than boys to say they have disabled location tracking features (59% vs. 37%).

Teens and Mobile Apps Privacy

58% of teens have downloaded an “app” to their cell phone or tablet computer.

As part of an ongoing collaboration with the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University to study American teens’ technology use and privacy-related behaviors, the Pew Internet Project has undertaken a study that focuses specifically on youth use of mobile software applications or “apps,” using both a survey and focus group interviews. The focus on apps in this study follows policy makerand advocates’ interest in the topic, as growing numbers of teens gain access to internet-enabled smartphones and tablet computers.

The nationally representative survey of youth and parents finds that 58% of all U.S. teens ages 12-17 have downloaded a software application or “app” to their cell phone or tablet computer. Among American teens, 78% of teens have a cell phone³ and 23% of teens have a tablet computer; 82% own at least one of these mobile devices. Within this subgroup of teens who own cell phones or tablets, 71% say they have downloaded an app to one of those devices. These figures are higher than similar measures of adult app downloading on mobile devices.⁴

As noted in previous reports, older teens are more likely than younger teens to own cell phones, but teens of all ages are equally likely to own tablets.⁵ However, among teens who own at least one of these mobile devices, app downloading does not vary significantly by age; 66% of those ages 12-13 download apps, compared with 73% of those ages 14-17.

Pages: 1 · 2 · 3

Relationships and Going Places, Money and Computing, Computing, The Internet, Grandparenting

Teens Online, Mobile Apps and Privacy Concerns: New Pew Internet Reports

Teens and Mobile Apps Privacy

More Articles