Her Image, Her Choice
This post was originally published in 2018. A recent article in The Atlantic entitled The First Social-Media Babies Are Growing Up - And They’re Horrified caught my attention. Five years on, people are realizing that parents posting baby/child photos on their social media accounts does nothing to positively affect the lives of their kids down the road. In fact, many of those kids are not happy about it.
BEFORE OUR DAUGHTER WAS BORN, MY WIFE AND I HAD SEVERAL CONVERSATIONS ABOUT WHETHER TO POST PICTURES OF HER ON INSTAGRAM AND OTHER SOCIAL MEDIA.
Those conversations would often be short and in passing until just a few days before the birth when we truly had to make a decision, then I actually sat down and thought about it.
At first I was kind of indifferent. What is the harm in posting photos or videos of your child on social media? My account is private and I’m not very active.
But then I thought about an equivalence in my own life, which would be the baby book that my parents kept, and how I wouldn’t really want those pictures floating around the Internet forever. I did some digging and found that the terms of service on Instagram are such that while they do not technically own the photos, they do retain a non-exclusive, royalty free and transferable license, which means they can effectively do whatever they want.
Still - what is the reality that Instagram decides to use, transfer the rights to or scrape critical data from a photo in such a way that it would affect my daughter’s life? I’m willing to say that likelihood is slim.
And yet … we ultimately decided against posting photos or videos of her to social media.
The reason behind our decision was two-fold:
First - my daughter is an independent human being and while she was just an infant on the day of her birth with essentially no discernible ability to choose, she will eventually grow to become a toddler, a teenager and an adult with the full capability of choice. Her own image is just that - her image. I believe that giving her the right to choose how and where that image is displayed is not only a basic right, but also an important sign of respect and support.
Second - I asked myself a very simple question: who am I posting this image for? Social media platforms scratch a subconscious human itch for attention and feedback. The platforms are genius in that the photos and videos that we willingly give them for free are their product. The feedback we then get and give on those photos and videos creates an endless loop that ensures we will continue to post and come back to get and give feedback and the platforms can keep making money off of advertising.
Despite telling myself that I would be posting photos of my daughter for my family and friends and my “community” on Instagram, the honest answer to that question is that I would be posting them for me. Posting would ultimately be a way for me, using my baby, to get attention and feedback, and probably a lot of it. Who isn’t going to like or comment on a cute baby pic? Are they even a good internet friend if they don’t?
One thing is for sure - posting images of my child would do absolutely nothing to enhance her life.
It is highly probable that our daughter will eventually get a smartphone and decide to immediately create a social media profile and post 1,000 selfies. Or in seven to ten years, having one’s image all over the Internet may no longer be cool and she won’t post anything. Either way, that will be her decision to make.
In general the concept of social media is a reclassification of what it means to be “social.” There is nothing truly social about it and it is in fact being linked to increased rates of depression and isolation. Another post for another time, but if you want to read about someone fighting against the mining of human attention by these media companies - YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok - check out The Center for Humane Technology run by @TristanHarris.