Are parents sharing too much information about their children on social media?
Before our son was born, my Husband and I made the decision that we did not want him on any social media platform. I am proud to say he is among the 8% of babies that do not have a digital footprint. Don’t get me wrong, I love social media but I just don’t think it’s the place for babies. Making this decision was pretty easy for us. We agreed that once Daniel is old enough to create his own page, we will allow him to do so, if he wishes, but until then we did not want to create his identity for him. Our number one responsibility as parents is to protect our children and this is one way we have decided to do so.
It is disturbing to me how much information is out there on children before they’re even one year old. This ‘over sharing’ generation is the first for human kind and it’s just too risky knowing how with just one click there is SO much information searchable and permanently available to the public (yes, even if your account is “private”). Do we know the effect of this yet? No. But in my opinion, why take the risk on your child’s behalf? It’s reassuring knowing that I’m not the only one with this belief and more and more parents are taking this approach. But no matter what, you do what you believe is best for your children. I’m not here to change people’s opinions on the matter rather just explain my position.
I do however want to raise awareness to the risk of certain posts. It is typical for parents to post a birth announcement of their child stating their full name and date of birth. This is extremely risky because it can lead to identity theft and potentially digital kidnapping. Also, posting real-time information on your current location poses a potential risk for your child. And if those aren’t enough, that innocent picture of your baby in the bathtub is so adorable, until it ends up on an inappropriate site. So please just be cautious when posting if that’s what you choose to do.
This wasn’t an easy task to conquer. With all of our family members constantly wanting to share pictures of our son on their Facebook page, we had to be extremely diligent with letting them know our wish for him. It is extremely tough, you might look like “the bad guy” or “controlling’ because people do not understand your position, so hopefully this helps. And by the way, to this day we still need to remind them. But that’s ok!
Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely LOVE taking pictures of my son and have taken about 6M+ pictures in his first year… but you will not find any of them on the Internet. It’s just not the place for them and for that, I am proud. My husband and I have decided to let our son create his own identity, when he is ready.
Now to further explain my stance, when I started my Mom blog I was torn as to how to handle pictures of Daniel on the site. For his own privacy…for his future identity, I decided to only have pictures from the back so you will not see his face. I’m sure many of you were wondering why all his pictures were from the back. I hope you now understand why.
Here are some staggering statistics:
- 92% of children under the age of 2 already have a digital footprint
- Over 1/3 of moms between the ages of 18-34 have already created social media accounts for their baby before their first birthday
- More than 140,000 children are victims of identity theft each year
