Socially unacceptable
According to Marist Poll, 27 percent of users are ‘concerned' while 23 percent are ‘very concerned' about personal information leaking from their site profiles. The poll surveyed 1,004 people in late June.
Older users are more uncomfortable with aspects of privacy than their younger peers, with 65 percent of those aged 60 or above harbouring some level of concern about the security of their social networking information.
The poll identified 57 percent of women have some level of anxiety in relation to their profile details, compared with just 43 percent of men.
Despite this, more women use social networks than men. The poll found around 40 percent of men have a profile on a social networking site, an increase from 36 percent in December of last year, but 45 percent of women use the tools to keep in touch with family and friends, with no change since the last poll.
Overall, 43 percent of Americans have a profile on a major social networking site like Facebook, MySpace or LinkedIn. Yet 57 percent still shun the internet phenomenon and have not been tempted to join since last December when the poll found the figures remained broadly the same.
Interestingly, the poll also took account of peoples' geographical location in the States as well as household income and drew no trends or correlations from the people questioned.
It did however conclude that 21% of people are not concerned about their privacy at all, with the majority of this group being from the youngest age group.
