Communication privacy management, religiosity, and sharenting among Saudi parents living in the U.S

Like their Western counterparts, parents from the Middle East frequently leverage social media’s interactive capabilities to share and preserve memories of their children. While sharenting can enhance family bonds and allow parents to celebrate milestones with their social networks, the practice raises concerns about children’s privacy rights. Using communication privacy management (CPM) theory as a framework, 139 Saudi Arabian parents living in the United States were surveyed regarding their level of online information privacy awareness, religiosity, privacy management behaviors, and sharenting behaviors (specifically sharing photos of their children) to investigate these communicative tensions. The results demonstrated that Saudi mothers who were higher in privacy awareness reported more restrictive boundary ownership and less sharenting social behavior. Saudi parents with higher boundary permeability reported more sharenting social behavior, as did Saudi parents who were higher in extrinsic religiosity. Those high in intrinsic religiosity, on the other hand, reported less permeable privacy boundaries, and thus were less likely to engage in sharenting. The results have implications for CPM theory applications and for family communication scholars interested in transnational families who straddle multiple cultures while navigating their families’ digital privacy.