The fact that governments spy on us has been in the news a lot in the last two years since Edward Snowden revealed the extent of the US spying. It’s not just the US government; similar revelations have come out even in countries like Canada.

The folks at the Pew Research Center asked Americans how the knowledge that they are being watched has changed their behavior. Not surprisingly, a pretty large majority of people have made no changes. But the survey found that some people have changed their behavior, and here are some of the key findings in this survey:

• 87% of people said that they had heard about the government surveillance. Only 31% said they had heard a lot about it and 56% said they had heard a little about it.
• 34% of those who were aware of the surveillance had made at least one change to shield or hide their information from the government.
  • 17% changed their privacy settings on social media
  • 15% have used social media less often
  • 15% have begun avoiding apps that want access to their personal data
  • 14% say they are speaking to friends in person rather than communicating online or using the Internet
  • 13% uninstalled apps
  • 13% have edited themselves so as not to use what they consider to be sensitive terms online
• Those who have made changes tend to be younger than 50 and also to be in the category of those who heard a lot about the surveillance, or who thought that the surveillance was not in the public’s interest.
• Many people just cut back on using certain applications or have modified the way they use them. 18% did this with email, 17% with search engines, 15% with social media sites, 15% with cellphones, 13% with mobile apps, 13% with text messages, and 9% with landline phones.
• 25% of people have started using more complex passwords.
• Most people either do not know about or have not considered using tools that make it harder to track them. The percentages of people in these categories for various anti-surveillance tools include: 68% for search engines that don’t track you, 59% for email encryption software, 74% for browser plug-ins like DoNotTrackMe or Privacy Badger, 74% for proxy servers, and 70% for anonymity software like Tor.

The survey also asked how people feel about government surveillance and the results were mixed. 40% of Americans found it acceptable to monitor other Americans, 54% to monitor citizens of other countries, 60% to monitor leaders of both the US and of other countries, and 82% for monitoring ‘terrorists’.

Of those who are aware of the surveillance, 61% said that they are not confident that surveillance is serving the public interest. Republicans and those leaning Republican were more likely than Democrats to say they are losing confidence in surveillance.

In an interesting divide of opinion, 49% thought that courts were doing a good job of balancing the needs of intelligence against the rights to privacy while 49% thought they were not.

And finally, when asked how people felt about the government looking at their own personal data, 38% were concerned about emails, 39% were concerned about search engine results, 37% were concerned about cellphone usage, 31% were concerned about social media, and 29% were concerned about mobile apps.

I know I personally have cut way back on my viewing of cat videos. After all, I don’t want the government knowing I am a crazy old cat man (which unfortunately might be the case!).