Youth-Driven Information Privacy Education Campaign 2015-16: Digital Trust Foundation, Grant Report

Abstract

This project involved the development of a comprehensive and educational social marketing communications plan designed to help educate middle-school-aged youth about information use and abuse online. We achieved our goal of enhancing digital information literacy while developing critical thinking and creative communication skills for middle-school-aged children and the college undergraduates who worked with them on this project. Under the guidance of the principal investigators, the undergraduates worked with middle-school-aged youth in Los Angeles County to research and assess youth knowledge of issues they face online, develop potential solutions, and implement those solutions in an educational social media marketing campaign designed to enhance the digital literacy and responsible behavior of middle-school-aged youth . The research used to create the marketing campaigns involved middle school youth, parents/caregivers of middle-school-aged children, and middle school teachers and led to key findings and several deliverables as outlined below. The underlying theme identified by the research team is a permanence paradox: when an individual engages in online information exchanges without mediating the risk, due to a lack of knowledge of the long-term value of their personal information.