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Sharing your private life online might seem like a fun, harmless activity, but a new survey(Opens in a new window) from Secure Data Recovery finds that your followers might not appreciate everything you share.
People have definite ideas about what's appropriate to post online and what's not, based on data collected from over 1,000 respondents across generations.
For example, most people feel comfortable sharing basic information about themselves: first name (78%), birthday (67%), hometown (59%), and age (57%). Other items are considered more personal: Less than 20% are willing to share a picture of their house, health details, or financial status.
When it comes to sharing life events and milestones online, people are most likely to post about personal vacations (55%), graduation (32%), and deaths (29%). Divorce and miscarriages, though, are all but off the table, with just 3% and 1%, respectively, reporting they feel comfortable sharing on those topics.
Of course, there's a difference between sharing and oversharing. When presented with a list of topics, most respondents marked political views (53%), mundane daily life (48%), and bodily functions (42%) as the top-three most commonly overshared types of information.
Kids claimed the fourth spot, at 41%, but when survey respondents answered a direct question about whether parents overshare their kids, three-fourths agreed (75%)—among the highest level of consensus found in the study.
Parents seem to have already gotten that message, though, and each generation is posting less about their kids. Gen Xers, who are currently between the ages of 43 and 58, share about their kids online the most (45%) compared with boomers (27%) and millennials (25%).
Posting any personal information online poses security risks, and one-fourth of respondents (24%) reported they do not set their social media apps to private (meaning anyone can see their content.) For more information on how to protect your data online, here are PCMag's top tips to avoid identity theft, hackers, and the sale of your private data to third party companies.
4 easy things you can do to be more secure online — Clarification Please
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