This cultural comment from the New Yorker explains what happens when parents post on social media about their children. What are the ethical concerns when sharing your kiddos on the internet in a world of concern about data and surveillance? While social media provides parents with a community to learn and share experiences with other parents, what is the effect on the kiddos of their pictures posted on Facebook ten years from now when they are teenagers?
He never got to choose to not be on the Internet. What happens when the slow telos of parenthood meets the insatiable rhythms of social media is the subject of “Sharenthood: Why We Should Think Before We Talk About Our Kids Online,” a new book by Leah Plunkett. Plunkett argues that “sharenting” happens any time an adult in charge of a childʼs well-being, such as a parent or a teacher, transmits private details about a child via digital channels. Some of these activities clearly involve a public, such as posting pictures of your child on Facebook, or blogging about your kids.
It seems we are in the midst of all sorts of second thoughts on internet use and privacy, and this one deserves careful thought and some preventive medicine, as do a slew of other privacy issues.
Big Tech and Telecom companies are making noises now that they will fix the privacy problems that in great part they created with all the fine print permissions we “have to give” if we want to use services and apps. Suffice it to say, the public is way way behind on dealing with these issues, and it will in no way be easy to rectify the ongoing problems.
Being a person in any community is problematic, because we must say and do things as part of being alive that someone somewhere will hold against us, or exploit, if given half a chance. Previous to the cloud presence age…a well developed sense of discretion would establish boundaries that would in general provide some “safety” and “privacy” in a “real world” environment. That and help from the constitution of the US, and “common sense”, made for at least some real sense of safety and privacy “at home”.
Pandora’s box being opened, such boundaries are ever so hard to come by now. Not to say we’ll never get things working reasonably well for being a “person” online…or a “family online”..but it’s going to take a lot of work on concerns such as Kris notes here.
We should also note that utopia is NOT just around the corner, and that the human condition has always been rife with parts of civilization that don’t seem at all optimal.
That isn’t going to change ever, so we are going to have to put up with some regrettable aspects of online worlds. But we do hope to have a lot more options to finesse privacy, and opportunities to exercise discretion that can help us avoid the worst outcomes.