When the child is born into the Internet: sharenting as a growing trend among parents on Facebook

Abstract

Parents actively share information about their children on Facebook, but little research has explored the extent of this issue. The goal of this paper is to theorize a new type of parents’ online activities concerning their children, especially the problem of sharenting, which is increasingly common in contexts where social media such as Facebook play a significant role in relationships and interactions. This paper explores what kind of baby pictures parents share on Facebook and what are the likely causes of doing it. The presented research was conducted with the use of social media ethnography among 168 Polish parents using Facebook. The findings have shown that the phenomenon of sharenting is common practice among parents.