Walrave Michel, Robbé Sofie, Staes Luna, Hallam Lara
Research Group MIOS, Department of Communication Studies, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium.
Research Group M2P, Department of Political Sciences, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium.
Front Psychol. 2023 Jul 25;14:1171611. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1171611. eCollection 2023.
Sharenting, parents' sharing of personal information about children on social media is becoming increasingly controversial. Its potential risks have drawn some parents to engage in mindful sharenting: parents' application of strategies to reduce the potentially negative effects of sharenting, as they are aware of the impact sharenting can have on the child's privacy.
This study aims to investigate parents' motives for engaging in mindful sharenting, the strategies they implement and how relatives and acquaintances react.
In-depth interviews were conducted with eight mother-father dyads in Belgium. At least one of both respondents had to be born between 1980 and 2000 (i.e., millennial parents), having a child aged between 0 and 6 years. Conversations were transcribed ad verbatim, coded in Nvivo, and were analyzed thematically.
The reasons leading parents to engage in mindful sharenting were previous negative experiences they encountered or heard of from acquaintances. In addition, parents aimed to safeguard their child's privacy and prevent any misuse of their identity or any other forms of aggression. Furthermore, certain parents wish to grant their children the freedom to choose which media content about them is shared online at a later stage in life. As parents are aware of potential benefits of sharenting, they employ strategies to ensure their child's privacy, while still enjoying the benefits sharenting offers them. These strategies include photographing the child from a distance, the child looking away from the camera, focusing only on a body part, covering the face with an emoticon, blurring the face, or cutting recognizable parts from the photo. However, parents engaging in mindful sharenting are also confronted with questions and negative comments from family members and acquaintances. This makes them feel like they must justify their decision. Moreover, they are sometimes confronted with family members posting identifiable pictures of their child, which leads to privacy turbulence, and parents having to clarify and renegotiate the privacy boundaries concerning image sharing.
Parents deciding to engage in mindful sharenting engage in several strategies to balance between the opportunities sharenting can offer them, the social pressure they experience to post child-related updates, and their objective to protect their child's privacy. However, some parents face criticism, making them feel pressured to justify their decision and having to clearly explain to family members not to make identifiable pictures of their child available online.
晒娃，即父母在社交媒体上分享有关孩子的个人信息，正变得越来越有争议。其潜在风险已促使一些父母进行审慎晒娃：父母运用策略来减少晒娃可能带来的负面影响，因为他们意识到晒娃可能对孩子隐私产生的影响。
本研究旨在调查父母进行审慎晒娃的动机、他们所采取的策略以及亲戚和熟人的反应。
对比利时的八对父母进行了深入访谈。两位受访者中至少有一位出生于1980年至2000年之间（即千禧一代父母），育有年龄在0至6岁之间的孩子。对话逐字记录，在NVivo中编码，并进行主题分析。
促使父母进行审慎晒娃的原因是他们自己曾遇到过或从熟人那里听说过的负面经历。此外，父母旨在保护孩子的隐私，防止其身份被滥用或遭受任何其他形式的侵害。此外，某些父母希望给予孩子自由，让他们在日后能够选择哪些关于自己的媒体内容在网上分享。由于父母意识到晒娃的潜在益处，他们会采用策略来确保孩子的隐私，同时仍能享受晒娃带来的好处。这些策略包括从远处拍摄孩子、让孩子看向别处、只聚焦于身体的某个部位、用表情符号遮住脸、模糊面部或从照片中裁剪掉可识别的部分。然而，进行审慎晒娃的父母也会面临家庭成员和熟人的质疑和负面评论。这让他们觉得必须为自己的决定做出解释。此外，他们有时会遇到家庭成员发布孩子的可识别照片，这导致了隐私方面的混乱，父母不得不澄清并重新协商有关图像分享的隐私界限。
决定进行审慎晒娃的父母会采取多种策略，以在晒娃带来的机会、发布与孩子相关动态所面临的社会压力以及保护孩子隐私的目标之间取得平衡。然而，一些父母面临批评，这让他们感到有压力为自己的决定做出解释，并且不得不向家庭成员明确说明不要在网上发布孩子的可识别照片。
