"Sharenting" plight

Online from an early age: “sharenting” and the consequences

The most beautiful photos of children are often taken on vacation - and parents are all too willing to share them on Facebook, Instagram and co. This harbors risks that can go far beyond the obvious.

For decades, children's photos were primarily a case for the photo album and therefore a private "classified matter". Only selected examples ended up on the wall or on the dresser, and only in the rarest of cases, usually on special occasions such as holidays, did they leave the home in the form of a greeting or congratulatory card.

Today, things are different. The combination of smartphones with sophisticated cameras, social media and many parents' thirst for recognition ensures a constant stream of photos and, increasingly, videos of moments from the lives of their little ones - no matter how trivial they may be.

On the web from an early age
"Sharenting", a portmanteau of "share" and "parenting", is the name given to this phenomenon, which is actually no longer a phenomenon at all. As early as 2017, a US study pointed out that 90% of under-twos are already online. In 2021, Child Protection Switzerland spoke of an average of 100 photos that parents shared of their children on Facebook, Instagram and the like every year.

And the French association Observatoire de la Parentalité & de L'Éducation Numérique (OPEN) calculates that the image of an average child is shared 1300 times on social media by the age of 13, the minimum age for most platforms. Parents are primarily responsible for this - and are usually unaware of the dangers for their children.