NEW YORK–That Americans continue to get scammed online is no surprise. But the Americans who are most likely to get scammed is: Generation Z.
Members of Generation Z — those born sometime between the late 1990s and early 2010s and who grew up with the Internet— are likely to have been targeted or the 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,” Vox reported. “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% and 5%, respectively).
As Vox noted, compared to Boomers, Gen Z was also twice as likely to have a social media account hacked (17% and 8%). Fourteen percent of Gen Z-ers surveyed said they’d had their location information misused, more than any other generation, according to the Deloitte survey.
Social Catfish Findings
According to Vox, the cost of falling for those scams may also be surging for younger people, noting that 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.
“People that are digital natives for the most part, they’re aware of these things,” Scott Debb, an associate professor of psychology at Norfolk State University who has studied the cybersecurity habits of younger Americans, told Vox.
Why is Generation Z so often victimized?
The Theories
According to Vox, there are a few theories that seem to come up again and again, including:
- Gen Z simply uses technology more than any other generation and is therefore more likely to be scammed via that technology.
- Growing up with the Internet gives younger people a familiarity with their devices that can, in some instances, incentivize them to choose convenience over safety.
- Cybersecurity education for school-aged children isn’t doing a great job of talking about online safety in a way that actually clicks with younger people’s lived experiences online.
Similar Scams
Vox noted 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, Tanneasha Gordon, a principal at Deloitte who leads the company’s data & digital trust business, told Vox.
‘Tailored’ to Them
In addition, 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 told the publication, “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.”
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