Gen Z falls for online scams more than their boomer grandparents do
www.vox.com
The generation that grew up with the internet isn’t invulnerable to becoming the victim of online hackers and scammers.

Gen Z falls for online scams more than their boomer grandparents do. The generation that grew up with the internet isn’t invulnerable to becoming the victim of online hackers and scammers.::undefined

  • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1177·
    11 months ago

    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.

    Teenagers are bad at risk assessment…

    This shouldn’t shock anyone, but it makes boomers feel good about themselves and their lead addled brains can’t handle the critical thinking to understand why this isn’t the win they think it’s is…

    • pavnilschanda@lemmy.worldEnglish
      36·
      11 months ago

      True. As a kid I’d fall for scams all the time, constantly downloading malware that would crash the family computer.

      • EmergMemeHologram@startrek.websiteEnglish
        33·
        11 months ago

        Honestly a lot actually has changed in that time.

        So much info has leaked that it’s a lot easier to phish users than ever. There are dumps of usernames and passwords, so you can know several websites they use as starting points for fraud.

        Password reuse and credentials stuffing are also common now, which means if teens reuse passwords you can get into manu of their accounts.

      • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
        91·
        11 months ago

        Time online would naturally increase, but more importantly the pandemic would exacerbate that while also increasing the amount of people resorting to scamming.

        There’s multiple parts to the equation, called confounding variables.