Photography and other forms of telling the world about the events that are unique to human life have significantly changed in the digital era. From the birth of a child to a birthday celebration, social media has turned into a fun collage of memories. But for parents, the urge to share photos and videos of their children online presents a new challenge: navigating the complex world of sharenting.
Sharenting can be defined as sharing information about children on social media, derived from merging “sharing” and “parenting”. Even though sharenting results from an aspiration to communicate with family members or to commemorate significant events, it raises critical concerns about the protection of children’s data in the IT environment.
The Perils of Oversharing
Although to society, sharenting is not without drawbacks. According to CG’s blog post, A Guide to Sharenting that children do not have any decision-making powers over their digital identity profiles. As Dave used to share online his favourite baseball team, name, location, and embarrassing pictures, they can remain on the internet for eternity. This leaves room for childhood abductors, identity theft, and one can even be bullied through social pages in the future.
Challenges of Consent
One of the biggest challenges with sharenting is the concept of consent. Young children lack the understanding of the permanence and implications of online information. Parents, in their enthusiasm to share, often make decisions about their children’s online presence without considering their future wishes. This could lead to situations where children feel their privacy has been violated or uncomfortable with the content shared about them.
Striking a Balance: Safety Tips for Sharenting
Of course, there are still some strategies of safe sharenting and protection of the child’s rights to privacy. Here are some key tips to consider:
- Prioritise Consent: When children grow up, one should discuss with them what they do not mind sharing on the internet. Don’t take their photos or record videos without their consent and, if they decline, avoid posting such content.
- Think Before You Share: This means that there is a need to think twice before typing the post in order to avoid going ahead with content that has the potential to cost one dearly further down the road. Think to yourself whether the pieces of information you are disclosing are essential and whether it would be beneficial if they disappeared from your child’s life in the future.
- Privacy Settings Matter: Turn your social media accounts to private so that one can only see your child’s posts when you permit them to. That Is why you might want to open them new accounts when they are older to let them manage their own profiles.
- Focus on the Moment: There are moments when the happiness of sharing a result is much more important than the desire to showcase it on the Internet. Sometimes, you can capture special moments with your kids outside social media, tagging them or sharing them with the world.
Beyond Sharenting: Building Digital Citizenship
There is more to sharenting than just regulating what you post; the question only grows broader. It is a chance to begin teaching your children about digital citizenship. Here’s how you can guide them:
- Privacy Awareness: Teach your children, how privacy works on the internet and how to undertake themselves responsibly in the digital world. Explain to them how they should not post whatever comes to their mind on social media or type something on a chat and give freedom to the world to see.
- Critical Thinking: Promote the evaluation of the credibility of the online content. Talk about the real possibilities of being attracted and caught by an online predator and show how to notice a suspicious person and protect oneself from them.Analyse the concept of social media and how the content of the pages displayed is carefully selected as well as the need to be aware of what one posts.
- Positive Online Presence: Teach them how to be responsible users of the internet to make sure that they create a right nature on the internet. Remind them not to be nasty or make fun of other people online, or to post negative things.
The Role of Platforms
Sharenting issues should also be a concern for social media platforms. It would be possible to introduce the options that would enable parents to monitor the accounts of their children until some specific age is reached. Also, there could be easily accessible materials toward possible danger of sharenting that users may read.
Conclusion: A Shared Responsibility
It is possible to both enjoy childhood and effectively use social networks and other technologies being a parent only if you know how to avoid violations of your child’s rights to privacy. Since these are really potential dangers for kids and teenagers, parents can actually become protectors of children by using these guidelines in order to develop a proper use of technology from early childhood. Please remember that the digital world into which your child will grow up is built at least in part by the choices you are making at this very moment.
