Understanding what’s happening online is especially pertinent while discussions rage about how people’s attitude to privacy is changing – particularly the idea that digital natives have a vastly different approach to privacy from their predecessors. Instead, Boyd says, activities that strike adults as radically new are often more easily understood from the perspective of teenagers.

“Kids have always cared about privacy, it’s just that their notions of privacy look very different than adult notions,” she says. “Kids don’t have the kind of privacy that we assume they do.”

“As adults, by and large, we think of the home as a very private space – it’s private because we have control over it. The thing is, for young people it’s not a private space – they have no control. They have no control over who comes in and out of their room, or who comes in and out of their house. As a result the online world feels more private because it feels like it has more control.”