Online safety research
Online safety research
To help ensure our online safety and privacy guidance is relevant and timely, we continually research the latest trends for various issues. We commission primary research as well as review findings from other organizations' studies. While some of our surveys are conducted in the U.S. only, we also commission some surveys in multiple countries.
The results of our research provide compelling information that can help parents, educators, and others to be safer online.
On this page:
Online Reputation Management: Parents and Children 8-17 (November 2011, United States, Canada, Germany, Ireland, and Spain)
Less than half of people surveyed consider the impact of their online activities on their reputation and the reputations of others. As a result, many adults and children may be risking damage to their reputations.
Only 44 percent of adults and children actively think about the consequences of their online activities on how other people see them.
Only 38 percent think about the effect their online activities may have on the reputations of others.
Those who don't think about the consequences of online activity on reputations are less likely to manage or positively influence their reputations through online activities.
Download the Executive Summary or PowerPoint presentation for more information.
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Teen Online Reputation: 13 – 17 Years Old (July 2011, United States)
Teens want to protect their online reputation and acknowledge that doing so is essential to achieve their goals. Teens report they do a good job protecting their online reputation.
Teens believe that it is important to protect the following types of information: home address (88 percent), phone number (87 percent), family details (87 percent), photos (76 percent), email, (75 percent), and friend details (71 percent).
The majority of teens (91 percent) believe they have some or a lot of control over their personal information. Slightly fewer (87 percent) say that protecting their online privacy is their own responsibility. A smaller percentage of teens feel they have no control over their online privacy. These teens experience the highest incidence of negative consequences (29 percent) such as getting in trouble with their parents or being cyberbullied.
More teens (93 percent) have taken steps to protect their privacy than parents of teenagers have (88 percent).
However, teens also admit they can do better.
Nearly all negative consequences (90 percent) are largely the result of teens who mismanage their online reputation—by their own admission.
Slightly more than half of teens (55 percent) say they give little or no thought beforehand to the consequences of posting something online.
Roughly two thirds (57 percent) report there are some people in their social network they've never met in person.
Download the Executive Summary or PowerPoint presentation for more information.
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Safer Online Gaming: Perceptions and Behaviors of Gamers and Parents of Gamers (December 2010, United States)
Overall, parents surveyed rank the risks of online gaming for their kids low compared to other online activities. And while they report that the steps they’ve taken to help protect their children are effective, most are not using available family safety settings.
Thirteen percent of parents ranked online gaming as their top concern compared to online chatting (43 percent) and browsing social networks (20 percent).
Forty percent report using available family safety settings. Of those who don't use family safety settings, 54 percent reported not using them because they trust their child and 53 percent said they don't use them due to lack of awareness or lack of understanding how to find/use them.
Even though parents ranked the concerns of online gaming low, many gamers themselves reported experiencing abuse online—and for younger gamers, the abuse has impacted their online gaming behavior.
One in five gamers reported experiencing abuse while gaming online.
The results showed that gamers aged 18-24 (24 percent) are twice as likely as gamers under 18 (12 percent) to experience abuse.
Most gamers, 71 percent, claim they know what to do when they encounter abuse online, but many (44 percent) do not report it.
Two-thirds of gamers under 18 have either stopped playing online games or play them less due to a previous bad experience.
Download the Executive Summary or PowerPoint presentation for more information.
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Location-Based Services: Usage and Perceptions (December 2010, United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, and Japan)
Overall, awareness, familiarity and usage of location-based services (LBS) remains low across all countries surveyed. However, there are indications that widespread adoption is only a matter of time as perceived value of these services is high among those who use them.
6 in 10 are aware of LBS, but confusion remains about what LBS are.
Among those who use LBS, 94 percent said they were either very valuable (41 percent) or somewhat valuable (53 percent).
GPS and weather alerts are most common uses of LBS while only 18 percent use LBS for sharing their location with others.
52 percent of respondents expressed strong concern with sharing their location with other people or organizations.
Of those receiving a location-based advertisement, 46 percent took action and 80 percent considered the ads valuable.
Download the Executive Summary or PowerPoint presentation for more information.
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Cyberbullying: Parents' and Educators' View (September/October 2010, United States)
While most parents and educators are concerned about cyberbullying, our research suggests they could be more proactive about their involvement with the issue.
3 in 4 parents are very or somewhat concerned about cyberbullying.
3 in 4 educators believe cyberbullying is a very or somewhat serious problem at their school.
Educators consider cyberbullying (76 percent) as big an issue as smoking (75 percent) and drugs (75 percent).
2 in 5 parents report their child has been involved in a cyberbullying incident.
1 in 4 educators have been cyber-harassment victims.
Download the Executive Summary or PowerPoint presentation for more information.
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Parental Involvement in Children's Social Networking Activities (August 2010, United States)
Although most parents are aware of the risks of children having social networking accounts, many also gave their children permission to have those accounts.
7 in 10 parents are very or somewhat concerned that their child has an account.
7 in 10 parents are involved in their child’s social networking adoption process.
3 in 5 16-17 year olds asked for permission to open an account.
38 percent of children under 13 have an account, of those 84 percent have accounts with minimum age requirements of 13, and of those, 90 percent have them with permission from their parents.
Download the Executive Summary or PowerPoint presentation for more information.
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Online Reputation (December 2009, United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany)
Microsoft commissioned research in France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States to find out how people manage the information they and others place on the Internet.
The same research also studied how hiring managers and recruiters use this information to investigate job applicants and to what extent the data they find has a bearing on their hiring decisions.
Online reputation research overview PDF
Online reputation research PowerPoint presentation PPT
Does online information affect your reputation? Video
Of participants surveyed, the percentage of hiring managers rejecting candidates based on their online profile information is higher in the United States than in the United Kingdom, Germany, or France.
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