Social media - should you share pictures of your children online?

Dr Garfield Benjamin discusses the issues of privacy around parents sharing photos of their children on social media.

Gwyneth Paltrow – who has 5.3m Instagram followers – reportedly ran into a spot of trouble with her daughter, Apple Martin, recently when the 14-year-old called out her mother for posting a picture of her on social media. Whoever you sympathise with, the incident has sparked a broader discussion about how much parents should share about their children online.

We are often wrongly told that young people don’t care about privacy. Even useful advice assumes they are oversharing or don’t understand. But, as I have written previously, parents perhaps have less to worry about than they might think – young people do tend to treat privacy responsibly. In fact, it is often parents, rather than their children, who need to think more carefully about their online activities.

Read Dr Garfield Benjamin's article in full on The Conversation