1. Consent
Image Source / Reddit.com
Babies and children are not at an age where they can actually give you consent. So by posting photographs of them online all the time, even if you are their parent or legal guardian, you are, in essence, breaching their right to provide you with consent.
2. Digital footprint
Image Source / Reddit.com
If you’re posting pictures of your baby or child, believe it or not, you are actually building into their digital footprint before they even know what on Earth one of those is. And no matter how innocent or private you think your posting is, this can potentially have long-lasting implications for them.
3. Cyberbullying
Image Source / Reddit.com
You’re probably posting photographs of your baby because you’re proud of them and you want to show your little bundle of joy to the world. But by posting them online, you might also be putting them at risk of nasty cyberbullying, where people post unkind comments about them and potentially even harass them in the future.
4. Identity theft
Image Source / Reddit.com
Putting your baby or child’s face out there on the world wide web for everyone to see (even if you think it’s private) can also put them, or you, at risk of identity theft. You’ll be surprised about how much information criminals can extract from your photographs, so be careful what you post!
5. Online predators
Image Source / Reddit.com
Unfortunately, despite its good sides, the internet also has a sinister edge as well where online predators lurk in the shadows. And if there is even the tiniest chance that they can gather information about your precious little one, or even see their pictures, why would you even take the risk?
6. Unwanted attention
Image Source / Reddit.com
If you post pictures of your child publically, they’re probably going to get some online attention in the form of likes or comments, or even shares. And sometimes, they might not do these with the best of intentions. Your child might even get unwanted attention in real life if they are recognized on the street!
7. Geolocation
Image Source / Reddit.com
You might not be aware of this, but many of the images we take on our smart devices actually contain geolocation data. This could be quite worrying because geolocation data can potentially reveal the exact location of where the picture was taken, thus compromising the safety of your baby.
8. Privacy
Image Source / Reddit.com
When you post photographs online of your baby, you probably don’t mean to but you are, in essence, compromising their safety and security. Even if your friends or follower list is carefully vetted and you believe your own privacy settings are tight, your baby didn’t ask to be shown to your social media contacts!
9. Loss of control
Image Source / Reddit.com
Once you put a photograph of your baby on social media, it is out in the vast digital world and if truth be told, it is no longer yours. So putting it out there means that you completely lose control of what happens with the picture, including who gets hold of it, where it’s shared, and, disturbingly, even how it’s edited.
10. Exploitation
Image Source / Reddit.com
Unfortunately, there have been instances where innocent pictures of children shared on social media have been collected by online predators and criminals and shared on inappropriate websites or forums. And there have been disturbing cases in the darkest corners of the web where they have been edited too.
11. Oversharing
Image Source / Reddit.com
If you are constantly posting everything your baby does, from taking their first steps to puking up milk on your shoulder, you’re going to inevitably start to blur the lines between what is public and what is private life. And, to be honest, nobody wants to see your baby throwing their food around for the fiftieth time.
12. Unintended audience
Image Source / Reddit.com
Even if you think your privacy settings are unpenetrable and you believe you’re only sharing pictures of your baby with close friends and family, realistically, you can never be really sure whether they will be the only ones to see it. Your privacy could be breached, or your friends and family could share with their friend lists without you knowing!
13. Data collection
Image Source / Reddit.com
You probably know by now that social media platforms tend to often collect and analyze user data so they can target advertising at you, recommend services, or improve their user experience, amongst other unknown reasons. And to be honest, this could be a security concern.
14. Facial recognition
Image Source / Reddit.com
Social media platforms also use facial recognition technology too, as do smartphones and other devices. So sharing pictures of your baby online can help to train these facial recognition algorithms. And this sits quite uncomfortably with a lot of people and raises concerns about privacy and surveillance.
15. Future Implications
Image Source / Reddit.com
Technology and the digital world are constantly evolving and developing. Just think about how quickly technology has advanced in the last ten years, and in the next, it’s only going to speed up. So the future implications of sharing on social media are just completely uncertain and you don’t know how it’s going to affect them!
16. Trust
Image Source / Reddit.com
In early childhood, as a parent, it is really important to start to build trust with your baby. There are many ways to do this but one significant way is by respecting your child’s privacy early on and working on establishing healthy boundaries as they grow and develop.
17. Emotional attachment
Image Source / Reddit.com
If you’re constantly seeking validation on social media through posting baby pictures and videos, this can really affect your own well-being and feelings of self-worth. Because if you don’t get as many likes as last time, you might start to feel like you’re failing as a parent and this can really affect your emotional attachment to parenthood and your baby.
18. Spoiling offline experiences
Image Source / Reddit.com
If you’re always posting online, it’s almost as if nothing ever happens unless you have shared it on social media. So your offline experiences might begin to lose value in your own mind and you might not fully engage with your baby in the offline world. This can really affect your memory building and early experiences in your relationship with your child.
19. Not being fully present
Image Source / Reddit.com
If you’re constantly thinking of how you can post each experience you have with your child online, or constantly checking your previous post to see how many likes it got or comments, or even shares, you’re never going to be fully present with your child and you’ll miss out on those all-important early experiences.
20. An unhealthy relationship with technology
Image Source / Reddit.com
You might think that you’re engagement with social media is not a problem. After all, you tell yourself that you’re just keeping your family in the loop with lovely updates about your baby. But in reality, this behavior will ultimately see you develop an unhealthy relationship with technology, and because babies are like little learning sponges, they might develop an unhealthy relationship with it too!
21. Comparison and judgment
Image Source / Reddit.com
When you’re posting on social media, and checking other parent’s pages when they update with pictures of their seemingly perfected (or not) lives with their babies, this is going to open up the floor for comparison and judgment. And this might even happen to you and you might even receive judgemental comments.
22. Longevity
Image Source / Reddit.com
Once something has been shared online, it’s pretty much there forever. Pictures can be really difficult to completely remove or delete from the digital world, even if you attempt to delete them from your own accounts. They might still be in cyberspace somewhere, or someone might have even saved or shared them on their pages.
23. Harassment
Image Source / Reddit.com
When you put anything out into the digital world, you are opening yourself up to the possibility of harassment. And if you share pictures of your baby, these pictures might attract trolls who may harass you and your child and leave negative comments. This can be super distressing for not just you, but your child as well, and do you really want that to be a possibility?
24. What about their career?
Image Source / Reddit.com
Interestingly, potential employers do often search for you online to see if you really are a good fit for the role. So when you post, you have to be mindful of this for yourself. But if someone else, like a parent, is posting photographs of you online, this can really disrupt your carefully crafted digital footprint too!
25. Boundaries
Image Source / Reddit.com
When you post about your family life, you are basically inviting people in to have a snoop at your private life and this can make it really difficult to put up certain boundaries that you and your family might need. So being careful of what you share with the world can help you to establish and maintain healthy boundaries as a family.
26. Artistic representations
Image Source / Reddit.com
Now, we’re not saying that it is evil to share pictures of your little bundle of joy, but instead of posting photographs of their faces, why not create artistic representations of them instead? Perhaps you’re good at drawing or painting, or creating digital content like reels. These can be so much more creative and personal.
27. Your baby’s hidden talents
Image Source / Reddit.com
Your baby might even have certain talents that you wish to showcase to the world or a smaller friend list. Consider taking artistic videos or sharing stories that show the world your baby’s unique skills or personality traits so that people can appreciate them more, rather than just scrolling past another photograph of a baby.
28. Collaborate on an online baby journal
Image Source / Reddit.com
You could even make your posting more collaborative and personal, and work together with family members or friends to create an online baby journal that documents your baby’s milestones, special memories, and experiences that you can all share and contribute to.
29. A private photo album
Image Source / Reddit.com
If you really want to share photographs of your baby with friends or family members because perhaps they live far away, why not create a private online photo album that only you and a carefully selected group of people can access? This could be done instead of using social media to post.
30. Check your privacy settings
Image Source / Reddit.com
You might have your privacy settings strictly managed, but please take this as a reminder to check them regularly. The truth is, sometimes, privacy settings change when there are updates to the platform you are using. So do make sure you go through them carefully to make sure they are as private as you would like them.
