It is easy to fall into the social media trap of over-posting. This is even more difficult for parents who share their children’s life without censor. This, according to experts, is very dangerous. The phenomenon has also created a new term: sharenting, a combination of ‘share’ and ‘parenting’. The term itself first appeared in 2012, in the international press.
Dr Szilvia Gyurkó writes about this phenomenon on the Hungarian online portal wmn. According to her, the boundary between privacy and publicity has blurred, and the generation who grew up on Facebook and Instagram is becoming parents.
Sharenting, ‘is intended to describe the phenomenon of parental overuse of social media and flooding the Internet with images, stories, and shares from infancy (and often from the fetal age)’.
The problem lies primarily with sharing a child's personal information, which is potentially dangerous if someone wants to abuse it.
If, for example, a parent shares the details of their child's kindergarten, school, and leisure programs, the child can be easily identified and found.
Five percent of parents with small children thought they were posting too much about their child, while 74 percent thought other parents were posting too much.
What can be done to promote a more responsible online parenting behaviour? ‘Less is better’ is a good starting point when considering what to share about children, or consider sharing only with immediate family.