Imagine not being able to escape online surveillance. The Internet of Things (IoT) is composed of technology that optimize our lives and is deployed in the thousands. However, the convenience these devices add to our lives comes at a cost—privacy. In 2019, China had more than 960 million IoT devices, many of them surveillance cameras, making this country a full-surveillance state. This system powers a social credit program that offers privileges to citizens with good scores. With IoT there’s no place to hide from the constant surveillance, specifically cameras, health-care devices, GPS services, home assistants, and other technology used daily to make life easier. Recently, millions of users downloaded FaceApp, putting their facial-recognition data into an unknown server controlled by a third party. Millions more willingly put IoT devices in their homes, many individuals install video doorbells outside their houses to track visitors, and many people don’t even think about the convenience of photo tollbooths, all of which record interactions and store that data. These things are all done to make our lives easier. When you think about it, the idea of a convenient, yet surveilled state under a nonauthoritarian regime isn’t such a crazy idea—it’s even appealing.

We wanted to explore people’s thoughts and attitudes about IoT by age range. From there, as a team, we discussed what that could mean for the future of privacy and surveillance. This article is the second in a two-part series on the ways that Millennials (those born between 1981 and 1996) and Generation Z (those born between 1997 and 2012) use the Internet. F5 Labs had three high school interns conduct a survey of more than 700 individuals, with participants from all over the US and the world about their digital habits, thoughts on security, and feelings toward IoT.

In part 1 of this series, we discussed some of the initial results and general trends, including demographic information, including the n value of each age cluster. Part 1 also discussed the results of the trends around digital habits, noting that there was less difference between the online habits of Millennials and Generation Z as the team thought there would be.

In part 2 of this series we discuss thoughts and attitudes toward IoT and how IoT may be seen differently generationally. This leads to a discussion about the possible implications for a society that could progress and value convenience over privacy.

Why We Asked the Questions We Did About IoT

Survey participants and answers collected around the questions related to IoT were the same as those mentioned in part 1 of this series. Sections of the 50-question survey were specifically designed to learn more about respondents’ attitudes and thoughts around IoT devices. A number of questions allowed for responses on a scale of 1 to 10, while others were simple yes/no or multiple-choice questions. None required a write-in answer, although some offered participants the option to add to their answer. In asking these questions, the team was interested in seeing if the difference in attitude toward IoT by age represents a conscious acceptance of the risks of using these devices or an unconscious acceptance.

What IoT Devices Do People Use?

The team asked survey participants which IoT devices they had in their homes. Respondents had the option of checking multiple items that included smart TVs, gaming consoles, wireless routers, kitchen appliances, baby monitors, WiFi cameras, security cameras, virtual assistants, DVRs, and toys. Respondents could also write in additional devices, with smart thermostats given as an example. Overall, survey participants had an average of 3.26 IoT devices in their homes. For an age breakout, see Table 1.

Table 1. Answers to the question: Number of internet of things (IoT) devices do you have in your home? (Check all that apply) 11 choices

While the average and median are similar throughout the age groups, that could be because almost everyone answered that they had some combination of a wireless router, smart TV, or gaming console. Taking a closer look at the numbers, the team postulated that respondents in the 36-plus age group had more discretionary income, thus more devices. However, it is clear that overall most participants had the same number of IoT devices, with three being the magic number.

Notably, in response to the question, “What IoT devices are in your home?” (see Figure 1), three respondents commented in the “Other” category that they did not trust any IoT devices while still noting that they had wireless routers in their homes. While many people do not typically think of routers as an IoT device, routers are some of the most vulnerable IoT appliances. As F5 Labs reported in volume 5 of the Hunt for IoT report series, and again in volume 6 part 1, IoT botnets target home routers in an effort to spy on and collect data on individuals as well as to launch DDoS attacks.