Maybe Students Actually Care About Facebook Privacy

As Facebook has faced one criticism after another for the last year over its various privacy failings, many educators have worried that students were oblivious to the need to keep private some of the information they post about themselves. New research in the journal First Monday, however, suggests students may be more aware of privacy issues than they are given credit for. The research followed college students during 2009 and 2010 and found that as news spread of Facebook's privacy issues, more students started to modify their privacy settings, suggesting both awareness of the public debate and concern about its ramifications.