You're listening to lifekit from NPR.
Hey, what's up, everyone?
Andrew Limbaugh here in for Mariel Saguera.
I'm at that age where a decent amount of my Instagram feed is friends posting pictures of their kids, you know, at the park, at the pool, at church, the recital or tournament or game.
And it's great.
I'm not gonna be one of those people who get on a soapbox yelling about kids on my feed.
But there is something disconcerting about the whole process, isn't there?
So I do think parents should be aware that they're not going to know at the moment that they share a piece of information or even a photo or a video where it might go.
That's Leah Plunkett.
She's on the faculty of Harvard Law School with a specific interest in children and family law and technology.
Given that the devices we hold in our hands, the ones I'm holding right now, are digital billboards.
They are, metaphorically speaking, digital billboards by the side of every highway, everywhere in the world now and in perpetuity.
She wrote a book about how adults unwittingly compromise the privacy of children by posting.
It's titled sharanthood.
You know, like sharing and parenthood.
And listen, my wife and I are actually pretty strict about what we share about our kid online.
But it turns out we are not the only people in our kid's life with access to a smartphone.
In my book, literally and metaphorically, sharenting refers to all the ways that parents, but also aunts, uncles, teachers, coaches, and other trusted adults in a kiddos life, transmit children's private information digitally.
Today, I'm lifekit Lee, and I talk about the potential harms of posting your kid online too much.
How to decide what to post and how to talk to the grandparents about maybe not putting the pictures of the family beach strip up on Facebook.