Anyone can get scammed online, including the generation of Americans that grew up with the internet.
If you’re part of Generation Z — that is, born sometime between the late 1990s and early 2010s — you or one of your friends may have been the target or victim of an online scam. In fact, according to a recent Deloitte survey, members of Gen Z fall for these scams and get hacked far more frequently than their grandparents do.
Compared to older generations, younger generations have reported higher rates of victimization in phishing, identity theft, romance scams, and cyberbullying. The Deloitte survey shows that Gen Z Americans were three times more likely to get caught up in an online scam than boomers were (16 percent and 5 percent, respectively). Compared to boomers, Gen Z was also twice as likely to have a social media account hacked (17 percent and 8 percent). Fourteen percent of Gen Z-ers surveyed said they’d had their location information misused, more than any other generation. The cost of falling for those scams may also be surging for younger people: Social Catfish’s 2023 report on online scams found that online scam victims under 20 years old lost an estimated $8.2 million in 2017. In 2022, they lost $210 million.
I’ve had my first PC when I was 13. I had unrestricted, unsupervised access to the internet from that point onward. Granted there weren’t that many scammers back in the early 2000s, but I never got scammed. I don’t even understand how these young people end up in these situations where they get scammed. But maybe all the overuse of the internet and social media destroys critical thinking skills, I have no idea. I’m sorry for the kids. :-/
Overuse of the internet and social media doesn’t destroy critical thinking skills. Critical thinking skills is something a lot of people don’t have in the first place and need to be taught. We aren’t naturally born knowing how to not be scammed.
Hm… that’s what parents are for usually. But then again, maybe their parents also haven’t learned critical thinking? Who knows. Something isn’t going in the right direction at all. Great for those in power, bad for the rest of us.
My little brother got scammed in TF2, I think he was around 12-13 years (not 100% sure). And he was promised crazy expensive skins and weapons, and they ofcource wanted to do it in 2 trades. When you’re that age, you’re so naive, you don’t really know about scams like that.
I guess he learned a very important lesson that day haha
When did this happen? Poor little guy. :-( Unfortunately he was JUST their clientele. That’s what makes me so angry. That they go after kids and old people who might have dementia. Naive and vulnerable people.
Oh it happened like 5-7 years ago. Yeah, kids is unfortunately a prime target in games, because they don’t know any better.
As long as their is money to be made, assholes is going to abuse it.
Or maybe they were really good scammers and you don’t even realize it to this day.
What so you mean? Having my data stolen? By that definition every website would be a scam. I don’t know what else you might be referring to.