Children online: My problem with this culture of oversharing

My social feeds- Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are full of people posting pictures of their children online, and it makes me uneasy.

While Facebook is a public space shared between ‘friends’, liked posts can still appear in feeds of people you don’t know because they are loosely acquainted with one of your friends, and people aren’t always hot on their privacy settings.

Also, with the popularity of mum and baby type community interest groups increasing, and hundreds of hashtags in circulation, it seems some people don’t worry about who sees their children online.

But still, as much as I love seeing baby and child photos, you’re putting your kids on the internet and I think people (parents) should start being a bit more cautious. I can understand the overwhelming urge to share that ridiculously cute snap of a child, but everyone needs to take a step back and think about what they’re doing.

Children online

Children online

The internet became dangerous when paedophiles learnt how to access images, and while that is of course a concern deeply rooted at the base of this post and my worries, I think I am still allowed to feel uneasy without addressing that particular fear.

Having children is the next step for my husband and I and we have already agreed, that while it’s fun to share photos announcing new arrivals, photos of our children will not be shared online. A snippet of their cute little hands or feet, fine but faces, no.

Fundamentally, it comes down to however much you think you have put those privacy settings in place, you can’t ever properly be sure of who is accessing those images and videos of your children.

On an almost daily basis, I feel a huge sense of gratefulness that social media came into play after I had left school as there’s no way I could deal with my changing teenage body, peer pressure and keeping up my online profiles and all the other pressures that teenagers must face today. 

Keeping things offline

These days, I genuinely applaud anyone that conceals pregnancy and big life updates away from social media, or removes themselves from social media altogether. While sometimes I get a bit frustrated with not being able to see a picture of someone’s new baby or wedding photo etc. if I’m not a close friend then I have no right anyway.

I measure my level of friendship with Facebook ‘friends’ by asking myself if I can wish them a happy birthday. If you’re friends with someone from school but have literally not engaged with them since, suddenly posting ‘happy birthday’ on their wall can seem a little odd. So why would they share intimate family photos with you? Exactly.

Oversharing

Ultimately, what this post about seeing children online comes down to is my discomfort with oversharing things online, not just about children and what they have or have not done that day.

Without a doubt, too many people share images of their children, not to mention personal information such as their full names, birthday, and what school they got into, across the web.

I love to know that you’ve had a wonderful day at the beach, and it’s great to see little Billy at six months, but I don’t need a whole album of your kids enjoying ice cream and playing, or tons of cute pictures of Billy looking adoringly into the camera lens, or those moments that while funny, will become hugely embarrassing for little Billy once he is older to know you shared it across Facebook.

Am I just being old fashioned or do I have a point?

Until next time x

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