Abstract
Studies of parents’ online safety concerns typically centre on information privacy and on worries over unknown third parties preying on children, whereas investigations into youth perspectives on online safety have found young people to focus on threats to safety or reputation by known individuals. The case of youth who are themselves parents raises questions regarding how these differing perspectives are negotiated by individuals who are in dual roles as youth and parents. Using interview and ethnographic observation data from the longitudinal Young Parent Study in British Columbia, Canada, this analysis investigates social media and online safety practices of 113 young parents. Online safety concerns of young parents in this study focused on personal safety, their children’s online privacy and image management. These concerns reflect their dual roles, integrating youth image and information management concerns with parental concerns over the safety and information privacy of their own children.
Online safety resources aimed at youth and at parents abound. Parents are encouraged to monitor younger children’s Internet and social media use, and teach older youth to enact privacy protective practices. Teens are warned that predators may seek to bully, lure them into inappropriate sexual situations or steal their identities. Studies of adult and parental online safety concerns typically focus on information privacy and on worries over unknown third parties preying on children, whereas investigations into youth perspectives on online safety have found young people to be more focused on threats to safety or reputation by known individuals. Research on online safety has in the past decade called for greater integration of these perspectives into more of a family systems approach. The case of youth who are themselves parents raises interesting questions regarding how these perspectives are – or are not – integrated by individuals who are themselves in dual roles as youth and parents. This analysis explores the social media use and online safety concerns and practices of young parents in the Canadian province of British Columbia.
1. Background
1.1. Conceptualising online safety
Degree of safety, measures taken to promote or protect safety and lack of safety are inevitable aspects of online interaction and digital life – as they are with offline life. Despite this ubiquity, online safety is a phrase often used yet infrequently defined. As opposed to cybersecurity, which refers to protecting networks and devices from threat or harm, online safety (or e-safety) refers to protection of people who use devices and networks, and is typically understood to include a range of overlapping risks relating to privacy, personal reputation management, and bullying and predation [1]. Frequently, education about online safety is aimed at either children/adolescents or parents and emphasises protection of personal information and avoidance or reporting of cyberbullying [2], as well as sexual exploitation [3] of young people. Online safety is also increasingly considered to include preventing electronic device overuse, and promoting mental well-being among technology users [4].
The concept of online safety is sometimes divided into the 3Cs: concerns regarding content (illegal or inappropriate images, text or video), contact (by unknown or unsafe parties, particularly regarding children) and conduct (such as grooming, bullying or revenge porn) [5]. This schema focuses on threats by ‘outsiders’ to vulnerable users such as children who are framed as potential victims. Wisniewski et al. [6] have called for more research encompassing both parents and youth together, and proposed a more comprehensive classification scheme of five types of online risks: harassment (an issue of content and contact, including bullying, threats and hate speech), solicitation (involving contact and conduct: sexual or commercial), exposure (to content such as explicit violence or pornography mapping on to all of content, contact and conduct), informational (not included in the 3Cs, and encompassing most privacy issues including identity management and breach of private information) and ethical (also not covered in the 3Cs, ranging from plagiarism to problematic use or addiction to unspecified harm to others).
Over the past decade, research in multiple disciplines has explored parental concerns about youth Internet safety [7,8], as well as adolescent and young adult [9] online safety behaviours, and assessed policy [10] or education interventions to increase the use of safety-protective behaviours online [11,12]. Although there remains a great deal of variation in applied online safety instruction, Western approaches have been shifting from encouraging parents to control and surveillance the online behaviour of older youth to a more ‘teen-centric’ approach to helping adolescents self-regulate and use technology to achieve developmental goals [13,14].
While not exclusive to social media, many online safety risks and concerns are amplified in such interactive online settings, which increasingly dominate Web 2.0 [15]. Social media platforms facilitate information exchange among users and are often built on a business model that involves monetising personal information and usage data. As social media is now used by 90% of the global online population [16], understanding the social media practices of specific populations is key to understanding how they negotiate their online safety.
1.2. Youth and online safety
Recent evidence suggests that, while some generational shifts in understanding and acceptance of formal and social surveillance may exist [17], adolescents are not as naïve to online safety concerns as sometimes assumed, and that social contextual factors such as culture and geography may outweigh age or generational cohort effects on privacy norms [18]. While adult privacy concerns have often been found to be individualistic and focused on third-party access to personal information (e.g. police or financial hacker access to personal data), youth’s privacy concerns tend to be more context-dependent and network-aware, and focused on reputation management and social privacy (e.g. with their peer group and family) [19,20]. Rather than being sites of unique danger for youth, online spaces may be replicating dynamics of vulnerability that already exist in offline life [21]. Furthermore, some research indicates that online spaces may sometimes be safer and more private than offline spaces in young people’s everyday lives, particularly for marginalised youth and those seeking stigmatised information [22–27].
Studies of online safety awareness and practices of adolescents and young adults have broadened from an initial focus on informational risks and personal information and image management to also including risks related to harassment and other forms of victimisation. This body of literature has also begun to recognise ways that youth take control of their online communication and resist surveillance using coded communication that may be inaccessible to adult audiences. The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project [28] has conducted online surveys and focus groups on US teens’ attitudes and behaviours towards privacy on social media. They found increased online sharing of personal information (as compared with prior data) combined with active use of privacy controls to manage information and selectively share it, and a low degree of concern over third-party access to social media data. The vast majority of these teens (91%) reported having posted photos of themselves online, with most also sharing personal information such as their real name, location and email address. This study found indications that offline social marginalisation along axes of gender and race may affect social media privacy practices.
Building on such findings, Youth + Tech + Health [29] conducted focus groups with teens in California, finding a high level of awareness of online privacy and safety risks, along with a general withdrawal from platforms such as Facebook (referred to by one participant as ‘Momsbook’ (p. 15)), which had come to be associated with older family members and were therefore less interesting and required more image management work. Subsequent to these reports, Agosto and Abbas [30] used surveys and focus groups to explore older (18–19 years old) teens’ attitudes towards online privacy and online safety in two mid-sized US cities. Similar to Pew and Y + T + H, and counter to popular narratives of teenagers’ online behaviour as reckless, they found that youth had thought about privacy, sometimes to the point of changing their online practices, and that they were particularly concerned with unintended audiences (e.g. employers) accessing their personal information. Also echoing previous studies, these youth participants viewed themselves as knowledgeable users of social media (compared with older and younger people) with strong online privacy awareness, and the safety concerns they did share may have had a gendered element to them (e.g. girls’ descriptions of experiences with ‘creepy old guys’ and online sexual harassment).
Other recent studies have explored in more depth the influence of gender, socio-economic status, and other elements of a young person’s social location on their online privacy and safety attitudes and behaviours. In It’s Complicated, boyd [21] took an ethnographic look into the social lives of networked youth in the United States, finding many formerly offline cultural dynamics and social structures to be shifting to online spaces. For example, as young people’s group loitering in public spaces has been criminalised in many locales, online ‘hangouts’ have grown. Similarly, boyd found that youth most vulnerable to online victimisation are the same youth most probably to be victimised offline (and indeed that online interaction may be safer for such youth in some cases). In this study, again, teens’ online privacy practices were found to be shaped by social norms and context, as well as technology affordances. However, boyd also uncovered examples of youth-created online privacy practices, such as obfuscating meaning within social media posts that were ostensibly ‘public’, much as youth culture has historically done offline via slang and jargon.
Similarly, Marwick et al.’s [31] study with 28 young adults aged 17–27 years with low socio-economic status in New York City found that participants were aware of and had engaged in protective practices regarding online privacy. These young adults used privacy controls available on social media platforms and were generally mindful of what they shared online. Participants who lived with high levels of surveillance in their offline lives (e.g. by intensive policing of neighbourhoods of colour and immigration authorities) indicated a high degree of awareness that their protective actions might not result in total privacy. Such experiences with criminalisation, targeting and everyday physical surveillance due to poverty led them to perceive online surveillance as less intrusive than the offline surveillance in their day-to-day life, over which they had little-to-no control.
1.3. Parents and online safety
Online safety concerns applied to parents tend to focus on informational risks, with an emphasis on the risks to which a parent (usually a mother) may inadvertently be exposing their child. Contemporary mothers are noted users of social media [32]. ‘Mommy blogs’ and social media groups have been identified as online spaces where mothers can connect to both reinforce [33] and resist [34] pressures to conform to contemporary norms associated with ‘intensive mothering’ (e.g. documentation of childhood, basing parenting decisions on research and surveilling children) [35]. The ideology of intensive mothering draws on similar discourses of personal responsibility as does the framing of online privacy as individual responsibility, and new media approaches to intensive mothering may involve privacy risks as mobile apps are increasingly offered to monitor and inform pregnancy and parenting [36]. As intensive mothering practices are often associated with being an educated or ‘good’ parent, marginalised populations such as young parents may not have the luxury of rejecting such norms without engendering social risks (e.g. stigma) or material risks (e.g. loss of state benefits) [37,38]. This may place them at greater informational risk in their online activity than their more privileged parenting peers.
Online mothering practices are not without their critics, as concerns have emerged related to ‘sharenting’ potentially violating children’s privacy and shaping the digital identifies of children who cannot consent [39–42]. Sharenting has been conceptualised both as a ‘problem’ [43] and a potential tool for social connectivity and a hallmark of ‘good’ parenting [44], and the negatives of these digital parenting practices challenge the conceptualisation of parents as wise protectors of children’s safety as much as studies of adolescent attitudes towards online privacy challenge ideas of youth as privacy insensitive. Recently, interventions have begun to warn parents of the risks of their own (over) sharenting by emphasising potential risks to their children [45].
1.4. Bridging the research gap
Education and research on online safety that focuses on youth has tended to encompass harassment and victimisation (especially for girls) as well as informational concerns including protection of personal information and image management. However, research and education on online safety for parents focus primarily on informational risks to their children, and balancing norms of protecting one’s child against needs to seek and share parenting information. This raises the question: what are the social media practices and online safety concerns of youth who themselves are parents? Given that many young parents experience stigma and social marginalisation, how do these factors shape their social media use and online safety practices as both youth and parents? This analysis explores such questions within a cohort of 113 Canadian young parents in their teens and early twenties.
2. Method
This analysis was part of the Young Parent Study, a multi-site, longitudinal, mixed-methods study of the lives of young parents in two regions of the Canadian province of British Columbia. The overarching study applied an ecosocial approach [46] to broad aims of understanding the role of social context and information in the lives of young parents. The current analysis applied qualitative thematic analytic methods to the interview and observation data from the first 3.5 years of the Young Parent Study, in order to investigate young parents’ attitudes and practices related to online privacy and safety. Study procedures were approved by the Behavioural Ethics Review Board of The University of British Columbia (H13-00415) as well as participating school districts and community organisations. In this reporting, all names used are participant-selected pseudonyms.
2.1. Study setting
Data for this analysis were collected from autumn 2013 through spring 2017 via a combination of ethnographic observation at organisations serving young parents and individual interviews with young mothers (YMs) and young fathers (YFs). Data collection occurred in two regions of British Columbia, Canada. The first of these was a northern region containing and surrounding the city of Prince George (PG). PG, the largest city in northern BC with a population of 74,000, has a history of natural resource industry. Over the last two decades, a series of economic downturns in the forestry sector and other resource-based industries have occurred. The city has since diversified its economy with the opening of the University of Northern British Columbia in 1990 and the expansion of tertiary health care and social services for northern residents of BC. PG is home to relatively few immigrants, and <10% of the population identify as a ‘visible minority’ (the Canadian government term for those who are neither Indigenous nor white), but over 15% of residents identify as Indigenous [47].
The second region was the southwestern coastal region of Greater Vancouver (GV), including the highly diverse major metropolis of Vancouver and surrounding suburbs in the lower mainland of BC. GV is Canada’s third-largest metropolitan area, with a population of nearly 2.5 million, including as many visible minorities (predominantly of Asian heritage) as residents of European heritage, but <4% Indigenous residents [48]. With a temperate climate and a location on the Pacific Rim, GV is a major industrial centre with forestry and mining company headquarters, and more recently the growth of media production (film, television, animation and video games), software development, biotechnology and lifestyle brands with outdoorsy or healthy emphasis. GV is home to several postsecondary institutions including two major universities, as well as several hospitals serving both geographic health regions and providing tertiary care for the entire province (e.g. the provincial Women’s and Children’s hospitals).
2.2. Participants
Interview participants included 113 young parents, comprising 90 YMs and 23 YFs, aged 16–29 years at first interview. While recruitment efforts were aimed at youth ages 15–24 years, two participants turned 25 before completing their first interviews, and six participants age 25–29 years were included as they were partnered with younger parents (n = 5) or otherwise associated with the youth parent community in their region (n = 1). Mothers were more commonly recruited from programmes serving young parents (which primarily, but not exclusively, served mothers), while fathers were more commonly recruited via their YM partners. Table 1 provides an overview of participant demographics. Approximately half of the sample was recruited from each of the two geographic regions; however, the subsamples from the northern (PG) region and southern (GV) region differed in age and ethnicity profiles. All but two of the PG participants reported ethnicities of Indigenous, White or both; all of the additional ethnic diversity in the sample came from GV region participants. In addition, the PG sample was older than the GV sample, with the PG participants having a mean age of 21 years, while GV participants’ mean age was 19 years. While the former reflects demographic differences in the regional populations, the latter is probably an artefact of recruitment strategies used in the two regions.
Participant demographic profile.
Responses not mutually exclusive; percentages may tally >100.
Study participants described a variety of social media use and non-use practices, some of which provided important support for their parenting. Most young parents used at least one social media platform, and they expressed a broad range of online privacy concerns and related protective practices. In addition, some described safety concerns related to themselves or their children, which were frequently gendered or influenced by age and social class.
2.3. Data collection
Data for this analysis comprised transcripts of interviews (usually individual, occasionally with a co-parenting dyad who preferred to interview together) and field observation notes from fall 2013 through spring 2018. Interviewing the same participants multiple times over the study period, interviewing multiple participants from each field observation site (including multiple young parents as well as staff), encouraging participant review of transcripts and conducting both observations and interviews were all used as methods of triangulation to strengthen the trustworthiness and credibility of these data and our interpretation.
Field notes were written during observations at locations such as school programmes for pregnant/parenting youth, neighbourhood houses and community centres, and young parent support groups. Researchers spent time observing in young parent programmes multiple times a year over the course of 2–4 years (depending on the programme), as well as at occasional special events or ancillary support services (e.g. a YFs’ group not directly affiliated with the local young parent programme). Notes reflected the physical setting, participants, topics of conversation and instruction, interactions and dynamics, and researcher reflections on the observation. Notes were also written following each interview and appended to the end of each transcript.
Individual interviews were conducted with young parents who were recruited from the observation sites and from surrounding communities, via a combination of purposive sampling (seeking pregnant and parenting youth ages 15–24 years), referral (passing along of study information by participants and service providers in their communities) and in later stages theoretical sampling (e.g. posters and other outreach in strategic locations to increase representation of participants from under-represented populations). Intake interviews typically lasted 60–90 min, and covered a wide range of topics germane to the overarching project: health (reproductive, sexual and general physical/mental), education and career, housing, relationships, and information use and sources (including social media use). Subsequently, participants were invited to complete follow-up interviews (20–60 min) spaced approximately 4–6 months apart, to a maximum of nine interviews per participant. Subsequent interviews followed-up on major study themes of interest (e.g. education, health and housing) and explored new topics that had emerged within the context of the study (e.g. changes to social services or newly popular media) or participants’ lives (e.g. job or relationship changes). The interview guide for one ‘wave’ of follow-up interviews focused in part on social media, including which platforms participants used and for what purposes, what privacy or safety strategies did they employ and how they felt about their online experiences as young parents.
Interviews were conducted in community settings such as private rooms at fieldwork sites or in participants’ own homes, by five White female researchers who wrote interview notes following each interview. Each interview was accompanied by a brief paper questionnaire that collected participant demographics and tracked changes in participant health, food security, housing, family composition and education or career plans. An honorarium of $30 per interview was offered as a token of appreciation for participants’ time and expertise. Interview participants provided written consent and interviews were audio recorded except in the rare exception when a participant declined recording, in which case detailed notes were taken. Recorded interviews were transcribed, de-identified and participant checked before being imported into NVivo software for analysis alongside the field notes.
2.4. Data analysis
This analysis used a hybrid deductive–inductive (or emic–etic [49]) approach to qualitative thematic analysis. First, all transcripts and field notes were examined and coded with a pre-determined set of thematic codes, including one for all references to media. This deductive codebook was initially designed around the overarching study areas of interest (e.g. education, disability, child developmental milestones, family planning, child feeding, information needs, parenting support, substance use, friends and peers). Transcripts were coded by research assistants (including coauthor C.M.) as they became available over the study’s 5-year time span. The study team met regularly over the course of data analysis to discuss coding, and the codebook evolved over time as the scope of existing codes was clarified and new codes were discussed and added to the master codebook in areas of emerging interest, for a total of approximately 70 deductive codes. By the end of the study, approximately 1000 double-spaced pages of transcript and field note data were coded with a ‘media’ code, which was applied to discussions about any form of media, including representation of early age parenting in television and films, as well as virtual spaces and social media sites and apps such as online parenting groups, online dating and online gaming. A separate analysis reports on representations of young parents in television media, focusing on ‘teen Mom’ reality shows [50].
Upon embarking on an inductive analysis of social media use by young parents, an initial set of 60 full interviews was reviewed to develop coder awareness of and sensitivity to key concepts (e.g. social media use and online privacy, safety and image management practices). Then, all data within the ‘media’ coded pages were inductively coded using qualitative thematic analysis [51] that was influenced by constructivist grounded theory [52] and used a constant comparative approach [53] to coding, first on a granular ‘line’ level, then again on a more theoretical level, as granular codes were grouped and set in relationship with each other.
3. Results
Social media use was almost universal among young parents in this study, as one might expect based on data about their age group more generally. Their online safety concerns spanned the 3Cs of content, contact and conduct, particularly when considering the privacy of their own children. In contrast to the concerns expressed by adolescent and young parent online safety education, which focused heavily on worries about harassment, solicitation and exposure, often by unknown predators, young parents in this study were more concerned with harassment and information breaches by people they knew. Furthermore, YMs in particular described ways they used online information sharing to protect their offline safety in potentially risky situations.
3.1. Characterising young parents’ social media use
There was no universal definition of social media among study participants. While Facebook was clearly considered to be an example of social media, participants sometimes included sites that are perhaps not strictly ‘social’ (e.g. Craigslist) in descriptions of their social media use, and questioned whether mobile apps (e.g. Ask.fm) qualified as social media. Similarly, sites or apps that may be classified as social media by technologists (e.g. YouTube) were used by participants, but not identified as examples of social media in their eyes, probably reflecting experiences as consumers rather than creators or discussants of the media on those platforms. Among some participants, social media – especially if accessed via apps on mobile devices – was seen as distinct from the Internet. As GV YF Saul explained, ‘I never really go on the Internet. I mean I got like, Facebook and stuff [but] I don’t think I’ve been on the Internet in like, a couple years [laughs]’. Saul was among the three self-identified Internet non-users in this study, who drew a distinction between mobile apps such as Instagram (perceived more as phone functions, akin to calling and texting) and the web-based social media sites or non-social websites that they considered to be Internet.
While have more than one account on the same platform for different purposes or audiences was not a regular practice among study participants, different platforms were frequently used for distinct purposes, and this was sometimes explicitly tied to the privacy setting options available on each site. For example, Facebook, the most popular social media platform in this sample as well as in the country as a whole, was used for keeping in touch with family and friends and was also popular for groups such as mothers’ groups (often arranged by geography, baby birth/due dates, or special interest) and regional ‘buy and sell’ or swap groups. Other uses for Facebook included for photo management, as a site for information encountering [54], event coordination and sometimes self-described ‘drama’ [55] with peers. Instagram, the next most commonly mentioned platform, was considered largely to be for photo sharing and sometimes for business promotion or serious leisure (i.e. intensive hobbies such as cooking or crafting) purposes. YouTube was frequently mentioned for entertainment and learning, and participants emphasised its educational nature (e.g. that it was helpful for learning to play an instrument, for reproductive health information, or for other ‘how to’ purposes such as vehicle repair). Less popular platforms included Tumblr (used for self-expression but perceived as time-consuming), Pinterest (for managing and organising information, inspiration and event planning), Snapchat, Twitter, Ask.fm and Kik.
While we did not systematically collect social media usage data from all participants, the narratives that emerged in response to our open-ended questions about media and Internet highlighted some differences between subgroups of participants. YMs in this study population were more avid social media users than YFs, using social media more frequently and on a wider range of platforms. In addition to gender differences in social media use, there was apparent geographic and cultural variation. In the northern PG region, participants reported online dating, and fathers reporting watching martial arts or bodybuilding on YouTube. In addition, PG participants reported using YouTube or mobile apps in lieu of or to augment or extend mental health services, with some young parents reporting that they liked to watch videos of motivational speakers or experts in techniques such as mindfulness or cognitive behavioural therapies. In the southern, more metropolitan region of GV, smartphone and Internet access were both ubiquitous, and social media use was more fragmented both in terms of using multiple social media platforms as well as use of less-popular social media platforms such as Tumblr, Pinterest, Snapchat, Ask and Kik.
YMs described social media use in ways that helped them achieve their own adolescent developmental tasks (e.g. developing positive identity and social competencies) as well as needs related to their development as parents (e.g. learning to interpret their children’s behaviour and set boundaries). Some YMs described social media use as important to their parenting, providing peer support and information. While most of their geographically local age peers were not also parenting, by joining social media groups (e.g. a community for mothers of babies born in a particular month, or YM groups in particular) they were able to feel part of a cohort that exchanged parenting information. PG YM Corinne described this dynamic in her favourite social media ‘mum group’, [T]here’s a lot of people that post on there for like, support or developmental stuff, or just sharing milestones and stuff with their babies which is really nice to see. […W]e all connect in this little Facebook group chat and it’s been … um, it’s been really nice because I just – they listen to anything and they kinda know the struggles, ‘cause some of my friends here don’t have children and don’t […] know the struggles that I’m going through.
3.2. Online safety: personal security, privacy concerns and image management
In our inductive analysis, study participants’ online safety concerns fell into three groups: personal safety, which focused largely on contact issues; privacy, encompassing issues of conduct and contact; and image management, which included worries over content as well as conduct (summarised in Table 2).Young parents’ concerns for their own online safety focuses more on threats from known parties such as ex-boyfriends, coworkers or government services. This differed from the concerns teachers and other staff expressed regarding young parents’ safety, which centred on YMs’ risks related to online predation and information security. However, when describing concerns regarding their own children, young parents used similar language and expressed similar concerns to those described by staff when discussing YMs.
Online safety for young parents: key points.
YM: young mother; YP: young parent.
3.2.1. Information sharing and personal security
Ethnographic observation revealed that services for young parents, such as school completion programmes, carried evidence of widespread concern regarding protecting girls and young women from online predation, with an emphasis on sexual predators. Posters discouraging ‘sexting’ or sharing revealing photos of oneself were accompanied by staff member expressions of concern about YMs being cautious with information such as one’s home address. This emphasis on YMs’ risks of online harassment, solicitation or exposure and secondary emphasis on informational risk, however, did not align with YMs’ own risk perceptions.
In the study interview data, we were hard pressed to find stories of YMs encountering unwanted sexual attention from strangers online. In the one example we did obtain, GV YM Laura described an app she briefly used, which allowed live chatting with strangers. However, she found, ‘they just, like, talk about sex and stuff’. Laura did not like that, and did not find the app particularly useful in other ways, so she deleted it – a story recounted without a great deal of concern or emotion on her part. In contrast with this encounter with unwanted sexual attention from a stranger, YM participants described their boyfriends or ex-boyfriends using social media in ways that crossed the line into being controlling or abusive in their lives, and these situations were often quite upsetting. PG YM Kezia was unhappy that her ex kept getting updates on their child from mutual Facebook friends, saying, ‘if it’s important, I’ll tell him. If not, butt out. Just because I put it on Facebook, doesn’t mean it’s going to him. He was blocked for a reason’.
While there were examples of social media being used as a tool by abusers to monitor and interfere in their ex/partners’ lives, we also found examples in which YMs successfully used social media to rally community to their aid in situations in which social services designed to help had failed them. PG YM Marie, whose ex-partner had repeatedly threatened and assaulted her, despite her having requested restraining orders from the police, said that Facebook was the most helpful service she would found to keep herself safe. Secondary to Facebook, she mentioned women’s advocacy social service organisations, but quickly circled back to describing how she could use social media to enlist friends to help keep her safe in the community. She described how this worked, I think one of the things is letting people know that I’m threatened is a good thing. ‘Cause then when I go to public places or, like, if I go to a party or something they’re like, ‘Oh, he’s here’. I’m like, ‘Okay, I’m leaving’, […] or they’ll know that what’s going on and they’ll kick him out’.
Other YMs talked about being helped by complete strangers in regional swap or buy/sell groups when they disclosed needs such as food or medicine shortages. PG YM Ally described one of these encounters, ‘I ended up posting on one of our local buy-and-sell groups, asking about, um, the food services in town. And somebody actually came to our door with, like, $100 worth of groceries and just helped us’. Other YMs described instances where they were able to access other supports, such as transportation, through social media. Northern British Columbia has long suffered from a lack of safe public transportation, including along the infamous ‘Highway of Tears’ corridor in which women, and particularly Indigenous women, have gone missing or been found murdered for decades. From field notes, I asked if she had access to traditional foods, and she said that if she went back to the ‘rez’ she could access some moose meat. She said that if she went on Facebook and said she needed a ride back, someone would be able to take her. She called Facebook ‘Native hitchhiking’.
Domestic violence, food security and safe transportation for Indigenous women are policy areas in which social services have often failed women. YM participants in this study were able to share personal information on social media – an activity often thought of in terms of increasing safety risks – to reduce their personal risks of violence and other harms.
3.2.2. Privacy concerns and practices
When asked, participants could readily describe their privacy settings on various platforms and seemed confident about navigating these. However, other people’s online actions, beyond their own control, was perceived as a cause of threats, particular to the privacy and safety of their children. Privacy concerns interacted with participant gender and other aspects of social status in many cases, with YMs reporting online privacy as a chronic concern that we did not hear from YFs. Some young parents reported not taking any particular measures to protect their or their children’s privacy online, and others stated that if they refrained from posting sensitive information, they did not need to take protective measures in online platforms. PG YF Alonzo did not use any privacy settings on his Facebook, for example, explaining, ‘I’m kinda right out there in the open. I don’t post a lot of things about my personal self or my life on there’. Alonzo used Facebook for entertainment, or as he put it ‘to take giggles’, and to keep in contact with his sister, employing a strategy boyd [56] called ‘Public by default; private when necessary’, for social engagement in the online sphere. Parenting added another dimension of online privacy management, however, in two ways: first in the stigma that many YMs described trying to minimise via their online image, and second in adding child-specific privacy concerns.
While young parents used social media to keep in touch with family and friends, participants expressed concerns that posting children’s pictures online could expose their children to risks. This was the case even if these images were shared to closed ‘friends only’ lists. YMs in particular expressed concern over pictures of their children being copied to other websites, edited or shared beyond their networks. GV YM Jane was among the mothers who were substantially more protective of their children’s privacy than their own. Jane was also frustrated with Facebook’s changing privacy policies and feed algorithm, which made it difficult to manage privacy controls, particularly over media of relevance to multiple users. Jane explained, I try to keep [my postings limited to] friends usually but … if they spread it onward, it still can grow so it’s a little scary sometimes. Like, if I want to post a picture where one of my kids is naked ‘cause they’re potty training, I don’t really want to put that out there […] [Sighs] I just know like – I hate how when I tag a friend, ‘cause their kid’s in the photo with my baby, their whole family now can see it.
This caused Jane to worry about such photos coming to the attention of pedophilic sexual predators. Commenting on the challenge of being cautiously protective without letting fear rule her life, Jane said, ‘I just know there’s perverts or something, and that sucks. […] I’m not looking to put that attention on my kids or anything, but I don’t want to think about it’.
Some YMs, such as PG YM Rascal North, employed strategies of obfuscation in order to share the cuteness of their child without showing any identifying characteristics. Rascal North explained that she only posted ‘innocent’ images: I don’t have any pictures of her on there ‘cause I have random people following me [on Facebook] that don’t know me, right. So I don’t know who they are or what they’re going to – so I have pictures of her feet or something, right. So – something innocent like that. But I don’t have any pictures of her face on there.
GV YM Kim also shared fears about posting everyday child pictures that other people might not see as so innocent, Facebook’s intellectual property policies and the lasting effects of such images in persistent medium. Not only was Kim ‘really freaked out’ by the idea of a picture of her daughter become property of Facebook, she felt ‘super scared and paranoid’ about where it could go from there: I try to never […] post pictures of my daughter that are um … her in the bath kind of a thing that could be interpreted weirdly. I also try not to post too many pictures of her, ‘cause I find it’s – I mean, there was never Facebook when I was a kid. You would go up to somebody and be, like, ‘Look at this picture of my daughter’ and you would get that photo back, where when you’re posting on Facebook, it’s, kind of, in the advertisements and all over the place and it’s just – that’s – I mean, that’s unfair to her, this innocent child.
Although parents in this study were youth themselves, they were cognizant of the ways that social privacy norms had shifted significantly since they were children, YMs shared their concerns with us about how digital technology might make it more difficult for them as parents in language similar to that we observed used by teachers and other staff when talking about the online safety of young parents themselves. PG YM Sandy thought that technology would make it hard to parent a teenager. She felt that ‘Everything is just changing so fast’, and that ‘By the time my baby’s a teenager, there will just this whole world of stuff that we don’t understand, but he’ll know exactly every little thing about’. GV YM Sofia’s 5-year-old daughter already knew how to download and use children’s game apps, but was ‘on lockdown’ when it came to communicating with other players on multiplayer games. Sofia explained that this was ‘just because I’ve heard so many stories about, you know, people, like, creeping […] little children and, you know, talking to them’. However, Sofia was not sure how old was old enough to start opening things up, because the norms had already changed so much from her own childhood.
3.2.3. Personal image management
Similar to youth in previous studies, young parent participants in this analysis engaged in identity and image management. YMs in particular were forthcoming about their efforts to manage their image and reputation online. Brooke felt that some other YMs left themselves open to judgement based on Facebook pictures depicting themselves partying. She disapproved of this, saying, You post things online and go partying all the time. If you want to go have a drink or two at the bar, go ahead, but you want to be sloppy about it and take pictures? That’s a whole ‘nother game.
Brooke, who aspired to obtain a professional office job after her schooling was complete, combined avoidance of ‘sloppy’ online images with actively cultivating a positive online presence, avoiding negativity and crude language in her posts.
Many people may cultivate their online images by measures such as avoiding unflattering photos, wishing to portray a wholesome image to family, friends or employers, for example. However, YMs in this study (and in this study it was only mothers, not fathers) also sometimes described practices of active image management specifically to mitigate the stigma of being a young parent. In some cases, this meant only posting content that portrayed positive images of oneself as a parent, while in other cases, this meant hiding the fact that one had a child all together. From observation field notes, Aliyah told us that she didn’t put her son’s picture on Facebook or Snapchat. When asked why, she explained, ‘I just don’t like it … exposed, like, because sometimes [people] would message you saying, ‘You’re a slut’, or whatever.’ Just – I don’t like it.
GV YM Aliyah clarified that she would post pictures of her child to her family only, using privacy settings. When asked more about this, Aliyah said, ‘I like my privacy’, and explained that while the people who were her Facebook friends (e.g. coworkers and friends from a community group) did technically know she was a parent, reminding them of this by posting a photo of herself with her son risked having them say negative things to her. She therefore used privacy controls to avoid reminding acquaintances of her child’s existence, in order to minimise judgement, stereotyping and online harassment.
Some YMs disclosed that when they got pregnant, they started new social media accounts. GV YM Keisha had two Facebook accounts: one of which was full of her partying friends and old pictures of her, which she no longer used but did not want to delete, and the other, new one, which she used every day. When asked about the difference between the two accounts, she explained, My new one’s kind of more about me being responsible and being older and, like, not taking pictures of me drinking or smoking or, you know. [On] my other Facebook I had so much pictures of me smoking and so much pictures of me drinking and … it’s just not something I wanted when I had my baby.
The content associated with Keisha’s new account was mostly, ‘[P]ictures of my baby. Pictures of, like, my vacations and stuff like that. It’s more … independent’. Starting a new social media account, which projected a more ‘independent’ image to the world, was part of Keisha’s attempt to assume a more responsible and adult image to the world. Given that Keisha was Indigenous and involved with government social services for young parents, she was no stranger to the offline surveillance that Marwick et al.’s youth participants perceived as more invasive than online surveillance. Online image management was probably one of many steps Keisha was taking to resist stereotypes and assert an image of competence and success.
However, online image management was not wholly within the control of participants. Some YMs described difficulties managing their online image, causing them stress regarding their own privacy and safety, as well as that of their children. Some experienced online bullying, and publicly accessible comments caused them to worry that surveilling agencies in their lives (e.g. social services) may view them negatively based on anonymous accusations. PG YM Violet described being targeted on a social media website specifically used for local gossip: It’s called The Dirty. […] It’s basically like a website where people just slander other people from their towns and I got put on there and they slandered me. They told – they pretty much accused me of being a thief and a drug addict, and I’m not that. […] They – so they slandered my daughter and they also slandered my mom and it was pretty not cool and I’ve been dealing with that …
YMs (and by extension, their families) who were targets of online bullying reported feeling helpless because they did not have the knowledge, social networks or social capital to be able to barricade or remove these online threats. For Violet, the presence of these online comments had significant consequences for her and her family, factoring into a decision to move out of town for several months until negative local perceptions of her faded.
4. Discussion
Young parents, particularly YMs, in this study were active users of social media, in ways that helped them meet both parenting and youth developmental needs. Study participants employed privacy practices enabling them to blend parental privacy concerns with their age-typical social media engagement and personal safety concerns focusing more on peer harassment and government surveillance. In parenting roles, these young parents enacted concerns similar to those attributed in the literature to adult parents of teenagers. For example, young parents in this study expressed individualistic concerns regarding third-party access to their children’s data, photos or information. However, young parents also responded to online safety concerns in ways shaped by their experiences as part of generational youth cultures, such as by continuing to post photos but using ones that obfuscated details that could pose vulnerabilities, and even harnessing the power of social media to share personal information in ways that enhanced their personal safety. The concerns young parents in this study expressed over being unable to keep up with new technology and being unsure of where to set the limits regarding their children’s online socialising were also similar to those frequently described in the literature from older parents and other adult authorities (e.g. teachers). These similarities and differences indicate that role/responsibilities and age/generational cohorts interact in context-specific ways to produce online privacy concerns and responses.
In this study, as in some previous investigations, both social media use overall and awareness of safety risks among young parents were influenced by gender, ethnicity, geography and socio-economic status. Female and southern participants were more highly networked online than male and northern young parents, echoing earlier findings regarding the influence of geo-cultural setting on online behaviour norms [18]. Reinforcing others’ findings about gendered effects on privacy practices, YMs were much more concerned with their online image (e.g. not being ‘sloppy’), stigma management (e.g. hiding their parenting status), with protecting their personal information (e.g. where they lived), and about child predation than fathers [28–30]. Like older mothers, however [32,33], YMs in this study described a greater reliance than fathers on social media for parenting support, and more avid use of social media platforms (e.g. Facebook) sometimes eschewed by non-parenting youth for being associated with ‘moms’ or other older family members. Racialised youth, and those subject to government surveillance due to economic reliance on support programmes, used social media in ways that might not occur to others, such as establishing a new ‘independent’ identity and finding safe transportation, a finding that builds on earlier research recognising the interplay of online privacy strategies and offline social marginalisation [21,29,31]. In some cases, rather than creating safety risks, young parents were able to use social media to increase their personal safety and security, such as in cases when their friends-network could help protect them from abusers or when strangers would come to the aid of a fellow mothers’ group member in need. However, in other cases, YMs experienced the inverse; when they were not able to maintain a positive online image due to others’ actions, they experienced increased social scrutiny from their peers, and feared repercussions from social supports.
4.1. Limitations
While we employed multiple types of triangulation in this study, collecting both interview and observational data, studying multiple sites simultaneously and checking back with longitudinal participants regarding emergent findings, we researchers are all outsiders to the current youth cultures our participants inhabited. We inevitably bring our own ‘adult’ understandings to this analysis, which may not fully capture the nuances of young parents’ practices. This is probably most evident in our limited ability to intuitively understand the youth-associated strategies of data obfuscation and privacy protection employed by participants.
4.2. Implications
While this study took place with a specific population of interest – young parents in British Columbia – findings may be transferrable to other settings with highly networked youth, particularly those oriented towards media landscapes dominated by American websites and apps such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Our findings suggest that young people are capable of understanding and adopting ‘adult’ perspectives on online privacy, yet may respond in new ways due to increased familiarity with tech platforms. For media literacy and online safety education, it may therefore be the case that collaborative strategies drawing on collective responsibilities of adults and youth, which invoke pro-social rationales (i.e. protecting others) and recognise novel response strategies developed by youth cultures (e.g. those drawing on current memes or that use online disclosure for privacy protection), may be productive in moving towards improved navigation of online privacy in new media platforms.
5. Conclusion
When young people are parents, their social media use appears similar in many ways to that of their age peers, although they also participate in social media forums specifically for parents. Online safety concerns of young parents in this study focused on personal safety, online privacy of their children and image management, particularly among YMs. These concerns reflect their dual roles, integrating youth image and information management concerns with parental concerns over the safety and information privacy of their own children. While online sharing of personal information has often been understood as risky, and the Internet positioned as a site of potential exploitation for women and children in particular, young parents in this study also found ways to share information and use social media in ways that enhanced their personal safety and well-being.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
The authors thank the study participants.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research grants MOP-201209 and GIR-201212.
