Parents? and Children?s Preferences about Parents Sharing about Children on Social Media

Prior research shows that parents receive a number of benefits through sharing about their children online, but little is known about children?s perspectives about parent sharing. We conducted a survey with 331 parent-child pairs to examine parents? and children?s preferences about what parents share about their children on social media. We find that parents and children are in agreement in their perception of how often and how much information parents share about their children on social media. However, there is disagreement about the permission-seeking process: children believe their parents should ask permission more than parents think they should, and parents believe they should ask for permission more often than they actually do, especially younger parents. We describe two categories of content that children are okay, or not okay, with their parents sharing about them. We offer design directions for managing parent sharing.