I bet we’ve seen it all; friends making big announcements through Facebook-updates. Whether it’s an engagement, getting married, having a new job, buying a house or being pregnant, the fastest way to let all of your friends know about it is by putting it online.
Recently I read an article stating that two-thirds of parents post pictures of their newborn less than 60 minutes after birth. I find myself a bit annoyed by that. Sure, pictures of babies are cute, and I’m glad to know that there has come an end to the endless pictures of pregnant bellies, but I find it kind of egoistic of the parents. Since we are older, we can choose for ourselves whether we want a certain picture to be online or not. When I’m tagged in a picture where I think I look horrible, I remove the tag or even ask my friend to delete the picture.
In a way, I think it’s invading the privacy of the children. Just because you choose to have a profile on the internet, doesn’t mean your kid should have one too. What do you guys think of that? Is it ok to post pictures of your kid online?
The other day I was browsing through my childhood pictures, and I have to say, I’m pretty glad that my parents didn’t have access to the internet back then…
Hmm, I am sure many people will have mixed feelings about this topic. I will try to explain what I think. First of all, I do understand your point, but honestly I kind of feel different about it. In my opinion, it is not egoistic of the parents, because they are just expressing their pride. Since they are so little and until they grow up and can have a saying, yes the parents are responsible for the privacy of the child and they have control. However, if they decide to post pictures of their child, because they are proud and want to share it with their friends, I personally don’t see any harm and why it would damage the child’s privacy. In about 10 years, when those kids have their own profile and maybe see the picture, I mean, does it really still matter then? Afterall, it’s a baby picture and it not necessarily anything to be embarrassed about. What I am trying to say is I do think it is ok, and for example when a child is old enough to say “This is embarrassing, I don’t want you to post this”, then it would be a different story. Overall, I don’t see it as violation of privacy, because the parent’s intention is good. Nevertheless, it depends on what kind of picture it exactly is, but I definitely understand your point of view.
I understand where you’re coming from, but I agree with Linda. The parents are responsible for the privacy of their child. And how harmful will a picture of their first steps or the first time at the beach be? Or the worst case scenario, the first time a baby doesn’t want to be fed, but want to do it itself (and the food ends all over their face). It’s not like your future boss will bring it up in a interview. I think it will be harmful when you have past a certain age, e.g. you drunk from 10 shots and 13 woteas (vodka with ice-tea). But by then, your parents won’t be the ones putting embracing pictures on the net.
Besides that, I think the rules of internet privacy has changed. We now live in the era of technology. The era where my seven-year-old niece thinks its normal to have an I-Phone and kids understand tablets better than normal magazines. I think that, because these days it’s normal to put everything on the net, it isn’t invading of their privacy. It’s more like when they grow up, it will be weird if your parents didn’t put pictures of you on Facebook. It’s the era of a new status quo.
Everyone has its own perceptions about how to share their pictures and I understand your point of view but I also have to agree with Linda and Roos, since Facebook makes it possible to share pictures with multiple people so even your family members who are living all over the world, they could still see their other family members ‘growing up’ without really missing anything, for example their first christmas/birthday. However, I don’t think its a good idea to post every single event of the child online and uploading pictures should definitely not be embarrassing. Luckily facebook also made it possible to set privacy settings over the pictures so hopefully the parents will change their private settings so only family members are allowed to see the pictures. Next to that, I think that in most cases their parents are just too proud to show off their children and can’t wait to show what their child just did.