The Sunday Story: Permission to share

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4.5 • 52.8K Ratings

🗓️ 9 July 2023

⏱️ 28 minutes

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Summary

"It's this version of me that my mom's publicized and made very permanent."

Lou grew up as a social media baby. Their mom had a public blog where she shared details about her life as a mother. But she also shared details about her kids, including Lou. Now, Lou remembers the blog as a fixture of their childhood, but not in a good way. Throughout their teen years and into adulthood, strange adults would reach out to Lou online, asking personal and often inappropriate questions. Classmates would use content from the blog to embarrass them.

Lou is part of a generation of social media babies now grappling as young adults with a digital version of themselves created by their parents and shared with the world. Today on The Sunday Story, a look at family blogging, a trend that's become so popular there's now a name for it: "sharenting." But a growing number of young people are starting to object, saying such blogs take a toll on their mental health and violate their privacy.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Ayasarasco and this is the Sunday Story.
0:07.0	So, as you might know, I have three young kids and they love social media.
0:19.0	I mean, I TikTok, YouTube, all of that.
0:22.0	They especially love these videos of other little kids and their families.
0:28.0	They're all over social media now, like parents sharing every part of the kids' life.
0:35.0	Posting videos of their kids playing with new toys or doing pranks or having these lavish birthday parties.
0:42.0	Sometimes, you know, something bad happens, like a child breaking their leg or something.
0:47.0	And I have seen this.
0:49.0	It's not great for the kids, but honestly, it seems like even though there's the worry and the trip to the doctor,
0:57.0	it can make some good content out of this.
1:00.0	And that can be quite profitable.
1:03.0	There's money to be made from product placements, ads and views.
1:08.0	And that's great for the parents.
1:10.0	But what about these kids?
1:12.0	Like, what are they getting out of all of this online exposure?
1:16.0	Haneesha Harjani is a freelance journalist in Berkeley, California.
1:21.0	And they've been looking into this very question.
1:24.0	Welcome to the podcast, Haneesha.
1:26.0	Thanks for taking the time to chat.
1:28.0	Thanks, Haneesha.
1:29.0	So this kind of like posting a family videos on social media has become so popular that it's got its own name, right?
1:37.0	Yeah, so the practice is now commonly known as Sharenting.
	...

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