Beyond the Surface: Sharenting as a Source of Family Quandaries: Mapping Parents’ Social Media Dilemmas

Abstract

Sharenting is a common habit for parents in the digital age. Despite common discourse describing parents as naïve about it, empirical data supports many of them grapple with digital dilemmas concerning these digital narrations. This paper presents a quantitative content analysis of the opening posts of 665 threads posted on a parenting forum where posters discuss how the evolving communication ecology poses new predicaments – here conceptualized as Social Media Dilemmas (SMDs) – when it comes to governing their families’ and children’s digital presence. Findings propose a mapping of SMDs associated with this practice, showing the complex and multi-layered enterprise of governing sharenting, with dilemmas starting well before the birth of a child and concerning, not only parents’, but also other people’s sharing behavior.

Keywords:

• Digital Parenting
• Parenting Forum
• Sharenting
• Social Media
• Social Media Dilemmas

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to thank research assistants Carlotta Bagnasco and Valentina Costa, students at the University of Milan-Bicocca, for coding the database and providing insightful feedback.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).