Why Sharing Your Kids’ Pics Online Is Not A Good Idea

Probably like you, I’ve always struggled to find enough time to stay up to date with all my friends. So when I discovered social media in 2007 and joined Facebook, I was elated to have found a way to keep up with everyone. How I loved seeing snaps of my friends’ babies and kids. Hand on heart, it was joyous! However fast forward to 2024 and the ‘thinking’ around online sharing aka ‘sharenting’ has completely changed. No longer is sharing pics of our kids considered to be a safe and joyous past time. In fact, most experts now believe that sharing pics of our kids online may in fact be putting them in danger. Mark Zuckerberg Never Shares Pics of His Kids Online Despite the multitude of ‘mumfluencers‘ and parenting content creators on your social media feeds who normalise ‘sharenting’, some of the biggest players in the tech space have a very different approach. Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Meta, never shares pics of his daughters. In 2023, he did share a sweet family photo but he used emojis to cover his 2 older daughters’ faces. Although he doesn’t have kids of his own, Apple boss Tim Cooke has also spoken publicly about heavily encouraging his nephew to not be involved in social media. And this approach is also shared by many big names in Hollywood with celebrities like Kristen Bell, Gigi Hadid, and Orlando Bloom also blurring images or using emojis to help protect their kids’ privacy on social media. Now, I’m not suggesting that we need to take all our parenting tips from tech giants and celebrities, but it does highlight a trend amongst high-profile individuals that I think is definitely worth noting. Could Zuckerberg’s use of emojis be a message that it is in fact the end user’s responsibility to protect themselves online? Or is it a result of firsthand knowledge of what happens when pictures of children end up in the wrong hands? What Are The Risks With ‘Sharenting’ – Apart From Embarrassment? While your teen may nominate embarrassment as the top reason for paren