Teens who have had at least one negative outcome from an experience on a social network site are almost twice as likely as those who have not had a bad experience to say that their profile is public (23% vs. 12%). Cutting the data another way, teens with public profiles are substantially more likely than those with more private profiles to say that they ended their friendship with someone because of something that happened on a social network site. Likewise, those who admit to lying about their age in order to access a website or online service are more likely to have public profiles when compared with those who say they have not misrepresented their age (21% vs. 12%).

Teens who have parents that express a high level of concern about the way teens treat each other online and via cell phones are somewhat more likely to report having profiles that are set to private; 87% of teens with very concerned parents have private profiles, compared with 77% of those whose parents are less concerned.

Younger social media-using teens (ages 12-13) are just as likely as older teens (ages 14-17) to say they have set their profile to private. However, social media-using girls are far more likely than boys to say they have restricted their profile to friends only. Three in four (74%) report this, compared with just half (51%) of social media-using boys. Likewise, 21% of boys have a profile that is set to public, while just 12% of girls report this. Looking at those who have a partially private profile, 25% of social media-using boys report this compared with just 13% of social media-using girls.

Teen social media users who are black (30%) are more likely to say they have a public profile when compared with white (15%) or Hispanic (11%) teens.

However, while this gives us a general sense of the ways teens are controlling who is able to view the updates on their profile, it does not tell us a great deal about the fine-tuning that is necessary to manage every aspect of one’s profile online. For instance, basic profile information is often available by default, no matter what settings the user chooses. Facebook, the most popular social networking platform among teens, makes basic profile information such as a user’s name, gender, and profile picture visible to every user of the service. Other information such as networks, likes, activities, and interests are available by default but can be restricted by changing the privacy settings.⁴³ Additional customization that allows users to place detailed restrictions on who sees individual posts, photos, or other content is possible, though our findings suggest that most teens are not practicing this kind of micromanagement.

Further complicating this picture is the fact that the default privacy settings on Facebook and other social network sites have changed over time, requiring users who may wish to maintain tighter restrictions over their information to actively “opt-out” of changes that encourage a more open profile. And it is not just teens who struggle with these moving targets. Research examining practices among adults suggests that social network site users may hold inaccurate beliefs about the level of public visibility of their content on the sites.⁴⁴

Teens with restricted privacy settings broadcast information widely within their networks and do not limit what certain friends can see.

Among those teens whose profile is at least partially private, the vast majority say that they do not take additional steps to limit what certain friends can and cannot see within that network. Instead, once teens choose the general privacy settings for their profile, most appear to be broadcasting the same status updates, photos, likes, and other content to everyone in their network of friends; 84% say that all of their friends see the same thing when they post, and just 15% say they limit what certain friends can see.

Teens of all ages in our focus groups repeatedly described the process of friending as their first line of defense in managing their privacy online:

• MIDDLE SCHOOL GIRL:  There are some qualifications you got to pass if you want to be my friend [on Facebook]. You can’t be over a certain age. If you over like – if you real old, I’m not going to accept that request – (laughter) – because you’re old, ew. Why did you send me a friend request? If you’re old and if I know you and I don’t like you, I’m not going to accept your request. Now I think it’s like 17 requests in my friend box? I’m not going to accept. They’re going to sit there.
• HIGH SCHOOL BOY:  I got my school up there, my name, all my friends. I block, like, certain stuff, like I might block everybody from seeing my profile pictures or block them from seeing a certain photo I don’t want them to see. … I just do it as a whole: [if] you’re my friend, you can see everything, but if you’re not my friend, you won’t see nothing.

However, many teens described large networks that included lesser-known acquaintances who they decided to friend for various reasons. Some described feeling as though they were obligated to friend everyone in their school, while others talked about friending people they had met or seen at school events:

• MIDDLE SCHOOL GIRL:  Sometimes … your friends on Facebook, you might not know all of them, but like, oh, you’ve seen them at a basketball game or you’ve seen them at a football game or, like, you’ve seen each other in person but you’re not, like, really close friends. You’re just, oh, hey, I know him; I have him as a friend on Facebook.

There are no significant differences by gender, age, or race/ethnicity among those who customize what they share within their networks.

Teens who have parents that are friends with them on social network sites are no more likely to say that they customize their posts to limit what certain friends can see. However, we did hear stories in our focus groups that suggested some savvy teens alter their messaging when parents are part of their audience:

• HIGH SCHOOL GIRL:  Like if I’m about to update a status and I don’t like somebody to see it, I, like, block them from seeing my status. Say for my mother, for example. Like, I’ve got my mother on Facebook and I want to update something and I don’t want her to see it, so I block [her from seeing it].