The dark sides of sharenting

Abstract

Present day parents have become accustomed to regularly posting information and disclosing details about their children on social media, i.e. engaging in sharenting. Although many parents value the practice as it not only enables to involve distant family members and friends in the growing up of the children, but has also become a practice for collecting precious memories receiving social support and sharing one’s parenting dilemmas; sharenting has still gained quite a negative public image. The current article aims to highlight some of the most dominant concerns that scholars have voiced when talking about the dark sides of sharenting – the emergence of a datafied child, loss of privacy and a potential distress the practices of sharenting might cause to the parent-child relationship.