Is data pro­tec­tion so yesterday? Frivolous Gen Z on social media

Gen­er­a­tion Z (Gen Z for short), in some cases also referred to as post-Mil­len­ni­als, describes the successor gen­er­a­tion to the Mil­len­ni­als, Gen­er­a­tion Y. Gen Z includes those born between 1997 and 2012. Gen Z includes those born between 1997 and 2012. Some sources include those born after 1995 in Gen Z - so the exact age range is not clearly defined. What is clear, however, is that Gen Z has grown up with digital media from an early age. A func­tion­ing Internet con­nec­tion and the pos­ses­sion of various technical devices are essential for Gen Z. Real everyday life is thus merging with the digital world. In general, members of the gen­er­a­tion feel that values such as freedom, in­di­vidu­al­ity and diversity are important and tend to have a dis­missive attitude toward tra­di­tion­al ideals or ideas. Despite their striving for in­di­vidu­al­ity, however, members of Gen­er­a­tion Z are quickly insecure and look to their fellow human beings or social networks for affection and con­firm­a­tion. Ac­cord­ingly, the social media of Gen Z serve primarily for self-present­a­tion, as well as for en­ter­tain­ment and exchange.

TikTok is con­sidered the platform par ex­cel­lence for Gen­er­a­tion Z. Day in and day out, millions of videos are uploaded, liked and shared. With 23 million users in the United Kingdom, the platform can be con­sidered the most popular of all (as of 2022). However, in the survey, the pro­por­tion of non-users of TikTok was the highest. According to their own state­ments, 21% of the Gen­er­a­tion Z re­spond­ents are not active on the platform! And this despite the fact that the plat­form's target group includes Gen Z in par­tic­u­lar. However, the platform can be used from the age of 13, which is why the main target group comprises the even younger cohorts under 18, who could not be surveyed for technical reasons. Gen­er­a­tion Z includes. Who would have thought that the Meta network, which includes Facebook, would have higher user numbers among Gen­er­a­tion Z than TikTok, at 94%. The same applies to the Instagram and Snapchat platforms. But only one platform has almost all of Gen­er­a­tion Z: YouTube has the highest number of users at 96%.

Does Gen Z not care about data pro­tec­tion on the Internet? Concrete facts do. The fact that YouTube starts an audio recording seconds before the audio is started does not please the majority of those surveyed. A look at the female par­ti­cipants is par­tic­u­larly exciting: With the most votes (41%), women said they did not know about YouTube's audio recording and did not agree with it. For female par­ti­cipants, audio recording rep­res­ents an invasion of privacy, and this despite the fact that at the beginning, women were more averse to reading the T&Cs. Only 14% of the total re­spond­ents were aware of the fact and find the recording okay.

The Instagram and Snapchat platforms enjoy great pop­ular­ity among users. Despite the high user numbers, here too more than half of the Gen Z re­spond­ents do not agree with the transfer of data to countries outside the European legal area. Since the General Data Pro­tec­tion Reg­u­la­tion (DSGVO) does not apply in this area, different data pro­tec­tion laws apply here.

Here, too, more than half of Gen Z are critical of the transfer of data. A full 65% of re­spond­ents do not trust the data guidelines outside the EU and do not agree with the passing on of data on the platforms. Nev­er­the­less, 20% of re­spond­ents are more relaxed about the whole thing and have no problem with the transfer of data.

More than 2 billion people worldwide use the WhatsApp meta-platform to exchange pictures, send voice messages and com­mu­nic­ate with each other. This also results in the transfer of a huge mass of personal data, which is why a close look at What­s­Ap­p's data pro­tec­tion is required. However, this is not a problem, since the users have agreed to the data transfer at the beginning. Or not? Meta collects the contact data such as name, mail address and phone number of contacts of account holders, even if the contacts them­selves do not have a Meta account. Here, too, Gen­er­a­tion Z does not approve of data storage: two-thirds of re­spond­ents say they do not approve of the col­lec­tion of data. Only 15 % find the data storage of their contacts okay.

Is Gen­er­a­tion Z turning a blind eye to social media privacy? Not all members of this gen­er­a­tion are carried away by the hype of the platforms. After all, even one-third of those surveyed now reflect on their re­la­tion­ship with social media and stated that they were planning to change or had already adapted their user behaviour in light of the GDPR. This means that some users started reading the T&Cs more closely or deleted accounts com­pletely. Although most re­spond­ents said they did not agree with the data pro­tec­tion reg­u­la­tions regarding the platforms, more than two-thirds of Gen Z still said they might consider changing their behaviour if at all. Is this gen­er­a­tion already too deeply involved in the data vortex of social networks? Or does the strength of user habit blind them to potential dangers? The fear of missing out (FOMO) on something displayed on the platforms could be a key reason for such careless user behaviour.