Abstract
This study quantified the prevalence of two risky online behaviors among adolescents in Vietnam: online privacy disclosure and online pornography use. We conducted a field experiment with 1,313 junior high school students aged 13–15 years in Hoa Binh city. In addition to conventional direct questions, we employed list experiments to address social desirability bias in the students’ responses. The results indicated that 49.9% of the adolescents engaged in online privacy disclosure and that 58.5% were involved in online pornography use. This study revealed significant underreporting among adolescents (35.6 and 43.3 percentage points for privacy disclosure and pornography use, respectively). The heterogeneous analyses revealed that recent smartphone ownership and active smartphone and Facebook use were associated with a greater prevalence of these behaviors. Notably, urban adolescents showed greater engagement in pornography use than did their rural counterparts. This study represents a pioneering effort to empirically investigate sensitive online behaviors among adolescents utilizing an experimental approach to address measurement bias. Our findings suggest that list experiments are a robust method for assessing sensitive issues and emphasize the critical need for educational interventions to mitigate online risks faced by young people.
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