Social media has blessed our lives in many ways. I’ve been able to connect with so many of my long-lost school friends through Facebook. Apps like Whatsapp and Instagram have made it easier to connect with people, whether it is making a phone call with family and friends overseas or sharing tidbits from your everyday life.
The convenience of sharing offered by social media gives us the freedom to post pictures of our children – be it saying something funny, posing adorably in the bathtub, or throwing tantrums.
All this to what end?
Kids deserve privacy too
We rant about how today’s technology invades our privacy, steals our data, listens into our everyday conversations to target ads. Yet, we go ahead and post pictures of our little ones on social media only because it seems sweet or funny at the moment.
Little do we understand that the simple act of posting pictures puts kids in harm’s way. Sure, watching that viral picture of that young boy sitting on the pot repeating, “I didn’t poop, I peed!” in a South American-ish accent brought a smile on all our faces. But imagine the horror when he finds out about this as a teenager. Chances are his friends will find out too, especially the bullies.
Social media has bumped us all up on a pedestal, pushing us to share happy or comical moments at the cost of our children’s privacy. While they may not have a problem with it now, they may feel embarrassed when they find out later. Children can be embarrassed about printed photographs where they’re wearing no clothes, so you can only imagine what they feel about images posted online for the world to see.
You may think, “What’s the harm in posting a picture of a child! After all, it can be deleted later.” The issue with that is that pictures once posted can be available on internet archives or saved on social media servers. So even if you wish to eliminate them later, you may not be able to do so.
Allow kids to create their own digital footprint
While the supposedly positive posts form one part of things, parents also have the tendency to shame children online. They may share their kid’s bedwetting trouble or make their bad exam scores known. In fact, a lot of such posts crowdsources unnecessary parenting advice, one that you wouldn’t want your child to read or get caught up in later on. The best way to avoid this hassle is to avoid sharing such information altogether or ask friends and family not to share your children’s pictures and videos with others.
That being said, children have the right to create a digital footprint for their future selves without involving pictures of them throwing tantrums or videos of their baby talk. What do you have to say? Let me know in the comments!
