Description of the Exposure of the Most-Followed Spanish Instamoms’ Children to Social Media

Abstract

There is evidence of the risk of overexposure of children on social networks by parents working as influencers. A cross-sectional study of the profiles of the sixteen most-followed Instamoms in Spain was carried out. An analysis of these profiles was performed over a full month (April 2022), three times a week, to describe the representation of influencers’ children in the posts shared by them, as well as their role in the Instamoms’ marketing. A total of 192 evaluations of the profiles were performed in the study period. The average number of children exposed by an Instamom was three, generally preschoolers and schoolchildren. The children appear in a context of the family home and accompanied by their mother. The type of advertising that accompanies the appearance of underage children is usually women or children’s clothing, but also food products, leisure, etc. Appearance of children in the posts had a statistically significant influence on followers measured by the number of likes. Results provided the identification of two Instamom clusters with differentiated behaviors in relation to appearance of children in posts. It is important to involve Social Pediatrics in the protection of the privacy and interests of children given the increase in sharenting. The authors believe that there are concerns about their explicit consent to public exposure from early childhood and about the medium and long-term effect that this may have on their future well-being.

Nuevas tendencias laborales y la zona gris de los “kidinfluencers” en Colombia

“…XXIX, No. Especial 8, 2023 julio-diciembre _________________________________________________________________462-477 oportunidad para ingresar al sistema de educación primaria en su debido momento, según la planificación nacional propia de cada país como indican Vásquez (2022); y, Garrido et al (2023).…”

“No moral integrity”: Influencer sharenting and parental protective perception

“…Numerous studies have investigated how sharenting may emerge as a way to consolidate online identities (Ranzini, Newlands and Lutz, 2020), foster online communities (Le-Moignan et al, 2017), facilitate the exchange of information to address specific family challenges (Ammari et al, 2015), and provide support in various scenarios such as childbirth and maternal care (Tiidenberg and Baym, 2017). Additionally, among influencers, this phenomenon often serves as a component of their brand promotion activities (Garrido et al, 2023). On occasion, influencers engage in a practice known as "micro-celebrity parental mediation" (Leaver, 2017: 7), wherein parents create content for profit, targeting minors who subsequently gain recognition as "micro-microcelebrities" (Abidin, 2015: 2).…”