Are you over-sharing your kids’ information online? Unplug & Plug In Podcast: Episode 3
"Sharenting": are you oversharing about your child online? Guest expert Leah Plunkett explains
Today our topic is “sharenting” and we're talking about adults who overshare online about their kids and the damage it can cause.
Today host Lisa Honold is joined by guest expert Leah Plunkett who has literally written the book on sharenting (called “SharentHood”). Leah is going to explain how our current over-sharenting crisis is undermining our kids—and how we can make choices that restore their privacy & freedom to play & grow.
An excerpt from our podcast conversation:
Lisa Honold: Can you give me a few examples of what's going on right now? How parents are oversharing online and may not even realize it?
Leah Spunkett: The most straightforward one is social media. All of us parents, myself included are very proud of our kids. Sometimes we're also frustrated by them and a whole range of emotions in between. And we often, especially in pandemic life, go to digital technologies to share a cute photo or ask for help or join a Facebook group where we can commiserate.
When we do that, we are unintentionally exposing our kids private information, both in terms of the content of what we might say.
So if our child is having trouble going to sleep or having trouble with toilet training things that may be private in terms of content, if we're posting that online, even if it's in the spirit of looking for help, we are opening them up to an outside gaze. Even if we think a Facebook group might be private or our social media settings are set to private, information that goes out online, seldom stays where it's intended.
Also, we don’t have any insight into what might be happening behind the scenes with our kids' information. So in addition to the other people who might be seeing the content of what we're posting a picture, for instance, or request for help, we are not aware of what companies or even other third-parties down the line, like a data broker who might gain access to information, what they might do with it.
So social media is a big one, but we should not overlook all the ways that technologies that we have in our homes pick up information about our kids that we might not even realize…
Listen to the complete podcast episode here.
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