Opinions of parents on social media shares about children

Abstract

With the increased use of smart phones, social media apps are now only a touch away. Our
country is at the top in the social media usage rankings. Social media apps easily accessed by adults have
also increased the frequency of shares posted by parents about their children on their social media
accounts. This study aimed to determine the opinions of parents on the shares they post on social media
about their children. This research was based on phenomenological research design which is one of the
qualitative research approaches. The study was carried out with the participation of 42 parents, including
28 mothers and 14 fathers who have a child aged 0-8. An interview form was developed by the
researchers with the aim to obtain data from the study. The findings obtained from the interviews
conducted with the participant parents showed that 15 of them do not post social media content about
their children, while 27 of them do share social media content about their children. However, of all the
participant parents, 20 asserted that posts about children should not be shared on social media, whereas
the other 20 stated that such posts should be shared, and 2 of them said that they do not have any
opinion. In this context, it can be recommended to train parents about internet literacy