Buried in the fourth annual Connected Consumer survey announced Wednesday by Deloitte is a concerning figure:
- Gen Zs were more than twice as likely as boomers to have their social media account hacked (17% vs. 8%) and three times more likely than boomers to fall for an online scam (16% vs. 5%).
Can we please stop using “hacked” to mean compromised?
Someone at Deloitte spoke to Vox about it and the idea is that Gen Z is online more, and in more ways, than older generations so it could just be that the odds they’ll come across a scam are higher:
The kinds of scams that target Gen Z aren’t too dissimilar to the ones that target everyone else online. But because Gen Z relies on technology more often, on more devices, and in more aspects of their lives, there might just be more opportunities for them to encounter a bogus email or unreliable shop, says Tanneasha Gordon, a principal at Deloitte who leads the company’s data & digital trust business. Younger people are more comfortable with meeting people online, so they might be targeted with a romance scam, for instance.
“They shop a lot online,” Gordon said, “and there are so many fraudulent websites and e-commerce platforms that just literally tailor to them, that will take them from the social media platform that they’re on via a fraudulent ad.” Phishing emails are also common, she said. And while a more digitally savvy person might not fall for a copy/pasted, typo-riddled email scam, there are many more sophisticated, personalized ones out there. Finally, Gordon added, younger people will often encounter social media impersonation and compromised accounts.
The fraudulent ads are getting out of hand, I’ll give them that. Was scrolling our Twitter the other day and we seem to get nothing but shady product ads. One of them was for this really cool owl shawl, not that I need such a thing but I was curious anyway. I Googled the website selling it, didn’t get much info. So I went into retweets of the ad and eventually found someone calling it out — the sponsor of the ad had stolen images from someone who sells crochet patterns and was putting them out as an actual product for purchase.
Somehow I don’t think @tinyowlknits approved this random company stealing her intellectual property but whomst am I to say https://t.co/1hUufpqozb
— Valerie Insinna (@ValerieInsinna) September 21, 2023
And the same design from a different company. There are several more like this.
This is a design (and her photographs!) by Tiny Owl Knits.
If you purchase it, you are contributing to the theft of art by a talented small designer.
Don’t buy this!@tinyowlknits https://t.co/BfrD35fwbU— Leslie Bernard MEd 🇺🇦 🇨🇦♿️🧶🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️ (@knitntherapist) September 26, 2023
I’m curious what you’d actually get if you ordered. A triangular piece of sheer white cloth with an owl printed on it?
There’s one streetwear brand in particular I’ve checked out a few times, it looks like a completely legit operation based in the US except they sell excessively marked up Aliexpress hoodies and you’ll have to wait several weeks for it to arrive from China. Might as well order it from China yourself. I mean come on, if this is “streetwear” then the street it’s referring to is the one in Chinatown with the Obama Sonic backpacks and off-brand Pokémon:
We’ve all seen the Wish vs reality posts:
All that to say, don’t buy things from social media ads. You might get lucky, you might get some drop-shipped nonsense you could have gotten for much cheaper direct from Aliexpress, or you might get nothing at all.
And don’t get me started on the concerning number of young men getting wrapped up sextortion scams on Snap/Insta/Discord/Yahoo! Mail. Go to r/scams and there are several new ones a day. Guys, random women on the internet do not want to see your junk. That goes for young and old alike.
Anyway, went off on a tangent there. Be safe. And send Kitboga videos to your nearest Zoomer.
Deloitte: The Connected Consumer Paradox – Desire for Fewer Devices vs. More Virtual Experiences and Technology Innovation [PR Newswire]
