Sharenting, is it a good or a bad thing? Understanding how adolescents think and feel about sharenting on social network sites

It is common nowadays for parents to share information about their children on social network sites (SNSs). However, little is known on how adolescents think and feel about this sharenting behavior. Therefore, this study explores adolescents' perception of the reasons why parents share information about their adolescent children on SNSs, and adolescents' attitudes toward sharenting. A survey study was conducted among 817 adolescents. Factor analyses pointed toward four perceived sharenting motives: parental advice motives, social motives, impression management motives, and informative-archiving motives. Adolescents believed that parents mainly shared information about their children due to informative-archiving motives. They believed that parental advice motives were less common. Preliminary analyses pointed out that adolescents largely disapproved of sharenting. They mainly considered it as embarrassing and useless. Regression analysis indicated that when adolescents perceived sharenting as an impression management issue, the more negative their attitudes were toward sharenting. Conversely, the more adolescents thought that parents shared information about their children due to informative-archiving motives, the less they disapproved of sharenting. Additionally, when adolescents themselves disclosed more personal information or when they were more often confronted with sharenting, they had more positive attitudes toward sharenting. Adolescents who were more concerned about their online privacy, were more likely to disapprove of sharenting.

"There are four perceived sharenting motives: parental advice motives, social motives, impression management motives, and informative-archiving motives. Adolescents believe that parents mainly share information about their children on SNSs due to informative-archiving motives and less as parental advice. This might be due to the changed relationship between adolescents and parents and spending more time with their friends and peers. The more adolescents think that parents share information about their adolescent children due to informative-archiving motives, the less they disapprove of sharenting. Conversely, the more adolescents perceive sharenting as an impression management issue, the more negative their attitudes toward sharenting. Although adolescents themselves attach great importance to impression management, it seems that they disapprove it among parents. Adolescents largely disapprove of sharenting. They mainly consider it as embarrassing and useless. Yet, female adolescents or adolescents who are closer with their parents have more positive attitudes toward sharenting. Boys have more negative attitudes toward sharenting and are more encouraged to engage in privacy-protective strategies to diminish sharenting. Moreover, the results indicate that when adolescents have more previous experiences with parents sharing information about them on SNSs, they have more positive attitudes toward sharenting. Possibly due to their attitudes aligning with their parents. It is important that parents go in dialogue with their children to become more aware of their sharenting behavior and the potential risks, become aware of adolescents' point of view , and how their adolescent children might think and feel." (Verswijvel et al., 2019, pp. 7-9)