Many parents love to share stories, photos, and videos of their children online, but researchers wondered if this practice could cause more harm than good.
"Sharenting" doesn't appear to be going anywhere anytime soon, so researchers worked to determine how far is too far when it comes to the modern trend, the University of Michigan Health System reported.
"By the time children are old enough to use social media themselves many already have a digital identity created for them by their parents," said Sarah J. Clark, associate director of the University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health and associate research scientist in the U-M Department of Pediatrics. "Sharing the joys and challenges of parenthood and documenting children's lives publicly has become a social norm so we wanted to better understand the benefits and cons of these experiences. On one hand, social media offers today's parents an outlet they find incredibly useful. On the other hand, some are concerned that oversharing may pose safety and privacy risks for their children."
In the poll, about 70 percent of parents of children aged 4 and under said they used social media to get advice from other parents, and 62 percent said the practice helped ease some of their worries. The problem is that in some cases, parents may share information or images that their children will find embarrassing or "too personal" later in life. Three-quarters of the parents who participated in the poll said other parents were guilty over "oversharenting" in cases such as posting embarrassing stories, inappropriate pictures, and even information that could reveal their location.
In some cases, there have been concerning reports of photos of children being "digitally kidnapped" and passed off as photos of strangers' children. Children's photos have often been the target of cyberbullying and hurtful jokes.
"Parents are responsible for their child's privacy and need to be thoughtful about how much they share on social media so they can enjoy the benefits of camaraderie but also protect their children's privacy today and in the future," Clark concluded.
