To think people need to stop over sharing SO MUCH on social media

[yorkshirepudsx]

People share wayyyy too much online. Particularly about their kids.

I was just sat having a scroll of Facebook and came across a post this lady made, photos of her daughter (5 or 6 years old) led in a hospital bed. Then there were selfies of herself in the post, with a filter and pouting whilst the daughter is in the background super unwell!!

I went onto her profile and had a nosey and every little bit of information was on there! Which hospital, which ward, what was wrong, etc etc.

Then I realised after having a nosey on other peoples profiles etc, so many parents do it!! And it makes me sad 😩

Albums titled with the child's full name, date of birth, then photos of their children in their school uniform showing the logo and everything.
Then they post exactly where they are and when, whenever they go the gym, supermarket, work, etc, they check in, and tell everybody exactly what they're doing.

And the worst part is half of the stuff on their Facebook is set to 'public' - and then they have tiktok, Instagram, all set to public too.

All I can think is how unsafe this could potentially be for children?
Absolutely anybody could go onto their profiles, find out all the information they need on the children, what school they go to in which town, etc, they can easily get photos of the kids too - know everything about the children's parent's, where the parents are on what days of the week, etc etc.

It just makes me feel uneasy and a bit p*ssed off on behalf of their kids too.

I barely ever post anything on Facebook, all of my social media profiles are set to private anyway, but still, people didn't know I was pregnant until they saw me in person with a massive bump/pushing a pram 🙈 but I feel as though some people take it way too far.

I'd of cringed so much and would have felt so pissed off, if now, as an adult, my mum was on Facebook with photos of me in a hospital bed suffering with sepsis whilst she posed next to me, or if she was sharing memories on Facebook of photos of me sat in the bath, etc, for the whole world to see 🤦‍♀️

Is it just me?? Am I the weird one for being super conscious of what I post online?
I just feel like there's a limit. I understand people sharing their good news, or sharing the odd photos of their children/loved ones, but I just can't understand the need to overshare so much. It's quite sad really

Perhaps the worst thing is the using the illness and death of a child as a suitable subject for sustained public sharing in the media - I remember a particular case of that that went on and on and on, to the point where I found it distasteful and it began to seem exploitative.

I mentioned media rather than just social media because these days things often find their way from social media into newspapers and broadcasting.

Yep that’s why I post the odd update/photo with the privacy filters on, I have close family dotted about who we don’t see as much as we’d like to so just an easy way to see photos and updates

I had to leave some of those big groups though (the lockdown family one etc) so many attention-seeking posts clearly made for as many likes as possible. Constant stuff like ‘aww my six-year-old son randomly baked all these cakes and took them to the old people home!’ accompanied with a zillion photos. 😂

Absolutely true.
Facebook is awful.
The manipulation around Brexit was dire.

Tons of photos of Migrants hanging off a ship , saying that voting out would reclaim ''Our Borders'', and the ship shown was nothing to do with the English Channel.

Plus the pathetic posts that show a child or puppy with ''I bet I won't get even one ''Like''..
Plus the untrue stories put out as ''Truth''.

Farcebook and Twitter are the pits.

I've even seen photos of people at funerals next to coffins and posing selfies at wakes.

That's grotesque.

I know what you mean OP. Also, the ones on TikTok where it’s (normally) a girl saying into the camera ‘OMG, I’ve literally never told anyone this before. I can’t believe I’m about to tell you this guys, it’s the most embarrassing this ever’. You look and she’s got 3 million followers and 250k likes. Well, don’t tell us if it’s that embarrassing 🙈

I agree but I think social media sometimes replaces the village we have lost. People want to show their children, share their experiences and possibly want some validating for parenting in a world where it can feel like a vacuum.

Yes!!! I know what you mean!🤣
Or 'I'm so paranoid about XYZ' and then shares XYZ all over every platform for everybody to criticise etc. confuses me 🤣

Agree. I only keep FB for work purposes (marketing), and local mum and baby groups.

I often cringe about how much information people share about their children/grandchildren online nowadays (side note: in my day there was no information about children/grandchildren because the only people using it were students).

Firstly there's the safety aspect. Posting which school they go to, which after-school clubs they attend, etc, carries an element of risk. And is completely unnecessary.

But secondly there's the issue of consent. I know I'll probably lose people here, but just imagine becoming a teenager and realising that there's hundreds, maybe even thousands of photos and pieces of information about you, including your health and academic achievements, documented online. I would find that pretty creepy. We also don't know how employers (for example) might be able use this data in the future.

I get that, but then again if the phones were put to one side and people met face-to-face more, it would help that feeling, if that makes sense?
And then there's a big difference between only having friends/family on social media, having setting private and sharing things - to those people I'm talking about who share everything publicly and share every little bit of sensitive information. They can tell their family over the phone or message if their little one is seriously unwell in hospital - they don't need to take selfies posing next to their little one in a hospital bed and then upload it for the world to see. It's attention seeking.

Me and my closest friend meet up whenever we can with the kids and either have a play date and lunch at one of our houses or we go out for some lunch, we barely ever message each other (unless it's something mega important or to make plans) but we have a lovely catch up when we do see each other.

I really dislike the oversharing of kids' lives.

I mean, if people want to post selfies with duck pouts that's on them. But what concerns me is that no generation that has grown up being plastered on social media has matured yet, they'd be probably 14 or so. What happens if they turn around as an adult and really resent their parents for making their private moments public in a few years? It'd piss me off no end if my mum had plastered pictures of me in hospital after one of my operations and left them there for the world to see for years on end.

I do post pictures maybe once or twice a year but it's usually from the back of them just doing a nice activity or being somewhere nice.

@Calphurnia88 I often cringe about how much information people share about their children/grandchildren online nowadays (side note: in my day there was no information about children/grandchildren because the only people using it were students).

Firstly there's the safety aspect. Posting which school they go to, which after-school clubs they attend, etc, carries an element of risk. And is completely unnecessary.

But secondly there's the issue of consent. I know I'll probably lose people here, but just imagine becoming a teenager and realising that there's hundreds, maybe even thousands of photos and pieces of information about you, including your health and academic achievements, documented online. I would find that pretty creepy. We also don't know how employers (for example) might be able use this data in the future.

10000% to everything you said! You've worded it better than I could have but this is exactly what I mean! I'm so glad somebody fully understands what I meant and thank you for explaining it better than I could, but this is exactly what my brain was thinking in terms of safety, the child's future etc.

A few people have labelled me to be a mum shamer or whatever but it's not about that, it's just an observation I've made that carries a lot of potential risks and it makes me feel uneasy.

There's also been times people have taken photos of my child, without my consent, and posted them onto Facebook. They've tagged me but not once have they asked if it can be posted - I've actually fallen out with people over it, simply because I don't know who they're friends with on Facebook, they didn't get my permission, and that photo/any information given on the caption could have been saved by anybody! Just makes me feel uneasy.

I saw someone post their child throwing up with a stomach bug! An actual video of the child being sick in a basin.

Exactly.

That's how i see it, if I see people making an absolute d*ck of themselves on social media, then fair enough, (like the couple that argue on social media publicly, nobody really cares but it's funny) - however, children, especially young children, don't have a voice to say whether or not they consent to being online, so I think it should be approached with caution.

I've even witnessed arguments about this very subject on Facebook, and have seen parents say "they're MY child I'll post whatever I want" - which whatever, but I don't remember parents or grandparents having photos up on living room walls of their kids/grandkids lying in a hospital bed, they didn't have all of their personal information printed out and stuck on the side of their car/on their front door either. 🤦‍♀️

I've seen this!! I always think, they could have comforted their child instead of holding a camera and then simply typed "my child has been throwing up" we don't need video evidence🤦‍♀️

@OnTheRoadAgain1 I've also seen people post videos of their little ones absolutely screaming in pain and they post it saying "I don't know how to deal with them" - put the phone down and comfort them for starters 😓

The ones that annoy me are the ‘it’s ok not to be ok’ posts, complete with a crying selfie and a long emotional post about how ‘behind the scenes it’s very different, this is my life unfiltered’ 🥱 nobody gives a shit, take it elsewhere and stop attention seeking by depressing everyone else.

Also people who hide their pregnancy from FB like it’s some kind of state secret. Just why? I find that even more attention seeking in a way, like they assume everyone would be so interested and invested in their pregnancy that they feel forced to go under cover 😂

It is so awful filming your child in distress for attention. There is no other reason, they could quite easily private message someone for advice if struggling - no video needed!

Yes!!
Or the classic status of crying faces every day and then whenever somebody asks what's wrong, it's "pm me Hun xx' 🤦‍♀️

@Cuppasoupmonster I know a woman (a friend of a friend ) and she literally posts unthinkable things, I feel sorry for her kids when they grow up, if they see any of it 😩

She shares absolutely everything and I mean everything. She goes live on Facebook a lot, we all once had a notification that she was live - she was in labour at the hospital, she kept going live over and over. Then she has arguments (that she puts on Facebook lol) with her partner/family, because they find out sensitive/important stuff about her/the kids - via Facebook

tell the world they are off on holiday for two weeks - just asking to be burgled. Idiots!!

This comes up again and again on MN and I never understand it. If you’ve set your posts to Public, then yes, I can see a risk - but how many people really do this? Surely the majority of Posts are restricted to a person’s friends list (or that of anyone tagged)? I’d say the vast majority of people on my list don’t know my address anyway - and those who do aren’t going to burgle me. Even if someone I don’t know that well suddenly develops a tendency towards larceny and somehow manages to discover my address, unless I’ve specifically stated my property is empty or that I won’t be back until a certain date, the information that I’m on holiday is hardly gold dust. I could have posted from the airport on the way home; they might be seeing the post a day or more after I made it and I could already be home. I could have housemates or lodgers.

You're far more likely to be burgled whilst on holiday because someone has been watching a street to see who’s coming and going (or isn’t).

You’re still following every development though…

It's all attention seeking nonsense.
It's almost as though people feel that they are irrelevant if they don't have an online presence.
Everyone wants to be an " influencer". Yuck.
I also hate the way I no longer have to ask people how their holiday was or engage in light conversation......i know as i saw it all online.

@SleeplessInEngland I'm in my 50's and disagree. Most of my similar aged friends all use Fb much more than Insta. We have lively feeds, active groups and lots of local small business interaction. We also amongst us have more disposable income to spend than the average so ignore the grey pound and the Fb reach at your peril.