With millions of parents on social media — much to their embarrassed kids’ chagrin, usually — researchers say parents’ habits on Facebook and Twitter and the like can predict how they actually parent.
What’s more, they can rub off on their kids.
The scientists at University of Central Florida and the Indiana University Bloomington polled hundreds of parents with children under 10, and they found that those who constantly post pictures of their kids — and don’t mind if their friends share those pics — are more likely to be the “friend”-type of mom or dad.
That is, they’re not too into that whole discipline thing.
However, being so free with personal pictures is problematic, say both cybersecurity experts and psychologists alike.
“We were interested in looking at what parents consider private when it comes to sharing young children’s information online and the perceived risks,” says co-researcher Mary Jean Amon, an assistant professor in the School of Modeling, Simulation, and Training (SMST) at UCF.
“Our study reveals that such sharing of children’s photos is associated with permissive parenting styles.”
Amon adds, “But we need to be aware of some of the privacy issues when sharing children’s information online and conduct further research to figure out long-term impacts.”
That said, she explains, “permissive parenting has been linked to problematic internet usage among children.”
What that means is parents that have no problem oversharing photos and the like, tend to be more lenient with their kids’ Internet usage — and at a younger age — before their kids fully grasp the dangers that are out there.