Poll shows how little we trust social media

MORE than a quarter of Irish people have deactivated at least one of their social media accounts over privacy concerns, a survey has revealed.

As many as 26% of Irish adults have deactivated one – or more – personal accounts, according to an online poll conducted for communications company Pure Telecom.

The poll shows there is a growing trend of mistrust of social media sites across all adults. Only 31% said they trusted them to protect their personal data, while just 4% said they ‘completely trust’ them.

Men were more likely to act on their suspicions, with 30% of male respondents

admitting to deactivating an account, compared to just 23% of women.

Levels of trust in social media also varied across the country, with Carlow, Westmeath and Cavan the three most trusting counties.

Meath, Leitrim, Kilkenny and Tipperary were the counties that least trusted online social sites with their privacy.

The research also revealed that younger generations were more trusting of social media than their older counterparts.

Some 42% of those aged under 36 trusted it to some degree, compared to just 23% of

those above that age group.

However, concern over privacy settings has been growing across the board, and 28% of respondents of all ages said they had changed their online privacy settings in the last month alone.

Despite increased international pressure being placed on social media companies to safeguard personal accounts, a significant number of people believed that much of the onus lay with the user.

Although people believed social media companies had the main responsibility for protecting privacy, a quarter of respondents said that that responsibility lay with the account user.

However, despite the increase in personal security concerns, the survey revealed that efforts made by internet giants such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to address these issues had not gone down well with the Irish audience.

Of those who responded to the survey, 35% said that social media privacy updates were too confusing, while 29% said that they take too long to read.

Despite the growing lack of trust in social media security policies, one quarter of those who took the survey admitted to accepting privacy updates without even reading them, while 13% said they took no notice of such changes.