Toddlers of Instagram: the two-year-olds with more followers than you
Posting your child’s life all over social media? You might be participating in the new trend: sharenting.
This afternoon I was browsing my Instagram feed when I received a follow request from a two-week-old newborn. A friend of mine recently had a baby and took it upon herself to create the baby’s very own Instagram. I’m not going to lie, I love it! It’s cute, charming and incredibly sweet. However, it was like my feed completely switched, I realised I was following so many new mums or toddler-dedicated Instagram pages.
It was then brought to my attention that the hashtags #mumsofinstagram #toddlersofinstagram #mumlife #igkiddies have taken the social networking world by storm.
What are the ramifications of this trend, commonly known as sharenting? If a child doesn’t like having this huge digital footprint or digital tattoo (a term coined by Juan Enriquez), can it be removed and at whose discretion?
The birth of a baby’s online presence
Sharenting is the term used to describe parents who share photos, videos, and stories of their children online on social networking channels. Now, I’m not necessarily able to relate to parents who feel the need to share these details online. However, I adore my partner’s dog, Missy, and I love taking photos of her and sharing them online.
The point is, this sharenting isn’t exactly new and nor is it limited to just the mums of Instagram. People have been recording memories, photographs, and diary entries for many years. This is known as ‘media accounting’ and is used to document the roles individuals occupy during their lifetime, such as child, spouse, parent, friend, and colleague. Humans take part in media accounting to help reflect and express a sense of self, construct a coherent life story and feel connected to others.
Therefore, this form of sharenting can be attributed to parents expressing themselves and their identity (even through their child) in a creative way to connect with other parents. However, while this activity may benefit the parent posting, what happens when the child decides they no longer want to participate?
When sharenting gets out of hand
Over-sharenting is more commonly seen today, where parents become obsessed with posting their child’s day-to-day activities, allowing their identity to be shaped through an online presence.
This form of media accounting doesn’t always go to plan, in one case a mother was writing a blog about her motherhood when her daughter expressed her lack of consent regarding the content published about her. The mother then chose to continue writing these essays despite the protest, claiming she felt bad but was “not done exploring [her] motherhood in writing.”
While this situation further points to human desire for media accounting, it does bring into question the rights of children, especially relating to consent. It isn’t only the embarrassing stories that may be affecting the children, the harvesting and use of meta-data is raising privacy concerns within the online community.
Meta-data inscription on photos includes location details and other serious identifying information, which can often reveal the locations and patterns of the children’s everyday lives. The first thought that jumps into my mind when you combine meta-data and sharenting is the access parents are possibly giving to people to misuse the information.
Both French and German police forces have recognised that sharenting opens a whole can of worms when it comes to the privacy of a child. These forces have consequently taken to Facebook to advocate and post warnings, stressing the importance of protecting the private lives of children. Should parents take this step to protect children, should it be regulated by the government, or is it the responsibility of the platform?
Who’s responsible?
Many critics, myself included, are of the belief that a child’s opinion matters, especially when it comes to their online presence. If a child is opposed to sharenting, yet the parent isn’t willing to give up that online media accounting just yet, then there are steps which can and should be taken to protect the privacy of the child:
- The proper use of privacy settings,
- The use of a pseudonym, or
- Returning to physical paper diaries or photo albums.
However, maybe these privacy concerns should be more aimed at the platforms these parents are using. For example, blog platforms, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and so forth are all owned by large corporations. Often parents aren’t aware of just how much reach their posts have. Does this advocate for social platforms to become more transparent when it comes to the privacy of a user’s post? Possibly — I know my grandma could use a lesson or two.
Despite all this, I seem to be coming back to one point. These platforms all operate based on the economic logic of ‘surveillance capitalism’. This logic is built on extracting data from its users, deceiver patterns, and then using it to influence people’s behaviour. Essentially passing so much data regarding yourself and your child to a multinational corporation, not knowing what they are going to do with it, or who they chose to sell it to.
“While Kodak processed millions of customers photos they did not share that information with advertisers in exchange for access to their customers… In other words, Kodak did not commodify its users.”
So maybe I’ll stick to posting pictures of my partner’s dog Missy in a physical scrapbook for the meantime.
