A Tonto Dike Wisdom: Think again before you post those pics of your kids.

 


You might think it is cute to snap a photo of your toddler running around in a playground or having a temper tantrum for social media, but did you ever think it might be a mistake, or even illegal? Under France's rigorous privacy laws, parents could face penalties of up to a year in prison and a fine of 45,000 euros ($65,500) if convicted of publicising intimate details of their children without their consent. But if we turn the mirror on ourselves, do we as parents actually have the right to make our family photos public? If so, which ones?


This new legality is powerful food for thought for parenting in the Facebook era.
As adults, we often express dissatisfaction at the ways young people post their lives online.


Lets take a clue from Nigeria's Star Actress Tonto Dike, She hardly ever post her child's pictures and if she does, she shades his face. Being wise is not how good or intelligent you are, but  your discerning abilities. Knowing the kind and type of persons on social media, we risk taking the pictures of our kids and posting it on line. The negative consequences are usually overlooked. When i hear people criticize her and pondering what makes her child so special that she constantly covers his face is not only baffling but laughable. She just a smart mother with wisdom.

  Its not that bad to share but, Part of the issue is our tendency for over-sharing. A recent study by Nominet, which handles the UK's .uk domain name registry, found parents post nearly 200 photos of their under fives online every year.
This means that a child will feature in about 1,000 online photos before their fifth birthday. We have even got to the point where if you don't upload photos of your baby, others question whether you are a committed parent.

This new norm means many children will have a powerful digital identity created by someone else.
This process can be likened to the manufacturing of celebrity identities, where parents can potentially shape the public persona of their child in any way they want: child genius, disobedient, fashionista, fussy eater and so on.

How do you think your own mum or dad might shape your online identity? Do you think it would be an accurate portrayal of who you are?
There is also the issue of likes and comments on those photos. Without realising it, are we choosing to upload posts about our kids that we hope will get the most audience attention? If so, how is this skewing the identity we are shaping for them?

The web never forgets

We often tell our kids that once something is on the internet it is there forever, and this is a core concern for kids.
Research shows that parents often have not considered the potential reach and the longevity of the digital information that they are sharing about their child.
Your child will not have much control over where that home video of her having an embarrassing first singing lesson ends up or who sees it.

And for this generation of kids, the publicising of their lives can start even before they are born, when parents broadcast photos to all their friends and their friends' friends of the antenatal scan.
Parents' actions are generally not maliciously intended. In fact, they actually often see they are exposing something personal about their own life in such posts rather than that of their child.

There is also benefit from such sharing. Posts about your child bed-wetting might help a friend find solutions, or boost their patience for dealing with a similar issue with their own child. Many parents find this community of support important.


Parents sharing photos of their kids online is not only about digital identity. It is also about our obsession with taking photos of our kids, particularly when they shine (or do not shine) in their respective activities.
This can make kids feel pressured to perform to help mum and dad get the right snap to share. What the children really want to see is you taking notice of them and acknowledging that they and their actions are important.

So think before you post that video or picture of your child.


 Additional source from Joanne Orlando who is a researcher in technology and leaning at the Western Sydney University.