Deak+J+Focus+Group+Rationale

Deak J

A survey of five male college students was given on how they feel about online safety on social networking sites. We covered all the questions developed by our team. All of the participants were generally indifferent to online safety.

Social networks are increasingly subject to attacks by hackers and predators. Hackers are now targeting users by sending messages to their social networking sites impersonating their friends, and predators who frequent these sites have been charged with kidnapping, raping, and even murdering young women. Our team wished to determine how these threats affect Gen-Y's use of social networks and whether males and females view these threats differently. Information from these session will allow Proximity clients to promote the safety of their social networking sites when targeting Gen-Y users.
 * Focus Group Rationale**

The focus group took place at a student’s apartment on March 21st, 2010. Quincy, 22, student at Towson Univ, ebuisness major Juan, 22, student at Villanova Univ, psychology major Jeff, 20, record label represenative Pat, 19, student at CCBC, undeclared major Louis, 22, student at Towson Univ, music major
 * Setting and Participants**

We covered all five questions during our focus group session.
 * Session Topics**

__Concerns about privacy__ Most of the participants generally did not think that the online privacy really mattered too much to them. They generally felt that they wouldn’t put anything up that wasn’t meant to be seen. “If you don’t want someone too see something, don’t show it,” Jeff expressed. Most participants agreed that if an employer were to look at their profiles, it would benefit rather than hurt them, explaining that it will separate them from other applicants because it shows their personality.

__Hackers and predators__ The participants did express some concern about hackers and predators. Quincy has had numerous problems with virus’ and they all have experienced some hacking onto their Myspace accounts. They agree that it used to be a lot worse, but Myspace it doing a lot better job of cleaning up the hacking problem.

__Privacy settings__ We discussed how each participant set their settings and how they censor different friends. They all said that they have whatever privacy settings are applied when you first sign up. Whether they do it on purpose or not, it seemed that they did not have a preference whether or not strangers can see just their pictures or full profile. Most their settings defaulted to allowing only people in your network to see you full profile before being your friend.

__Using social networking sites as a dating portal__ All users have used social networking sites as a dating portal. Jeff had met his ex via Myspace. Louis met hit current girlfriend via facebook. And Juan was able to maintain communication with some long distance relationships via Facebook instant messenger. Although the experiences varied, they were not concerned about “creepers” that were trying to date them.

The session revealed that the male participants: The males in this session allow only what they want to show to be seen on their social networking sites. They have used the sites as a dating portal and they are normal people. Social networking sites are used to network yourself and most of these participants have used to get their name out to companies who may take an interest in your work.
 * Findings**
 * are indifferent to privacy and the privacy settings
 * are still worried about hackers, but not as much as in the past
 * allow friends to see full profiles and only allow strangers from their same network to view their full profile before sending a friend request
 * have used the social networking sites as a dating portal in one way or the other

These findings may just apply to these particular males, so we need to compare it with other male only sessions. Also we want to determine whether or not male and females social network differently and if their views on privacy differ.