All Quiet on the Facebook Front: Teens' Social & Mobile Media Privacy Strategies

All Quiet on the Facebook Front: Teens’ Negotiation of Mobile & Social

Media PrivacyAssociation of Internet Researchers Conference (IR15)

Daegu, South Korea October 22-24, 2014

Dr. Jacqueline Ryan Vickery, Ph.D.Assistant Professor

Department of Media ArtsUniversity of North Texas

jrvickery.comjacqueline.vickery@unt.edu

@JacVick

THE DIGITAL EDGE - S. Craig Watkins (P.I.)UT Grad Assistants: Andres Lombana Bermudez,

Alexander Cho, Jennifer Noble, Vivian Shaw, Lauren Weinzimmer, & Adam Williams III

clrn.dmlhub.net

• “contextual integrity” (Nissenbaum, 2004)

• Properties of social networking sites (boyd, 2014)

• Context collapse (Marwick & boyd, 2011)

• Individualization & personalization of mobile media (Campbell & Park, 2008)

• Mobile devices paradoxically lead to freedom & surveillance (Ling, 2010; Shade, 2011; Turkle, 2008; Vickery, 2014)

1. Boundaries of personal are structured around financial constraints.

2. Some teens resist the ways mobile devices reconfigure social & physical spaces.

3. Some teens resist social convergence.

“If I leave my phone on the table then they pick it up or start looking through my pictures. And I hate that. I don’t have anything to hide, but I just hate it when people look through my stuff without asking. If they ask me I’ll do it, but when they don’t it bothers me.”

– Gabriela, sophomore

“A phone is more personalized. It’s yours. I think a laptop would be yours too, but I don’t know because I share laptops…but if someone wanted to use my phone to text someone, I think I wouldn’t let them.”

– Amina, senior

“Amina has to make sure it’s more able to be passed around. Her iPod used to be more personal, but now that I get it sometimes, she keeps it clear and everything erased off of it.”

- Cassandra, senior

“Sometimes skipping school to go do stuff is a better way of freedom because I don't have my mom blowing up my phone, where's I'm at, what I'm doing. I don't have to constantly worry about stuff. To me that's freedom right there. It helps me clear my mind. A lot of people say skipping is all bad and everything, but sometimes it's healthy to skip because sometimes it's too much of it at one time…There's just sometimes where I'm like, ‘I need a break.’ I just don't want to go to school and I don't want to be home and I don’t want to be available. I just want to get away from everything.”

- Selena, senior

“My friends, they tease me, but they know I don’t want a phone right now. But Mr. Lopez, he’s always telling me, ‘get a phone’ [laughs].”

- Javier, senior

“Everyone keeps their Tumblr private usually because they post, like actually what they're going through or what they feel…so I think that's why we all keep it really private.”

- Gabriela, sophomore

“Whenever me and my friend check them on Facebook, they’re all like ghetto and stuff, and I’m nowhere near that”

– Miguel, freshman

“I don’t have anything to hide, but…”: The challenges and negotiations of social and mobile media privacy for non-dominant youth

Dr. Jaqueline Ryan VickeryInformation, Communication, & Society (forthcoming,

IR15 special issue)

jacqueline.vickery@unt.edu@JacVick

jrvickery.com