Opinions of Emerging Adults About Their Sharenting Experiences: A Qualitative Study Open Access

Social networks, also known as social media applications, allow the user to create a fully or semi-public profile in a limited system, to determine the people who can access their shares, and to view the shares of others within the system and navigate between profiles (Boyd & Ellison, 2007). Users present themselves in social media applications with various content and shares such as images and personal information they add to their profiles or wallpapers, and they can create a positive representation that serves their own purposes by using impression management strategies (Elciyar & Küçük, 2020; Zhao et al., 2008). Some parents share posts about their children on social media to present this positive and ideal self. In these memories created deliberately by the parent, the child is the supportive accessory object. However, there are also parents who are not concerned about creating a polished profile, who aim to album their memories of their child in a sincere and realistic way, and who share posts where the child is the focal point, not the object (Holiday et al., 2020).

The behavior of parents sharing personal information and visuals such as photos and videos about their children on social media is defined as ‘sharenting’ (Choi & Lewallen, 2018). This expression is derived from the combination of the words “Share” and “Parenting” (Sharenting, 2013). The fact that sharenting has become common among parents raises some possible problems that may arise. By addressing the dark side of sharenting, researchers have expressed concerns about the disclosure of the child’s data, loss of privacy, and potential risks that may harm the parent–child relationship (Siibak & Traks, 2019). The digital footprints of children in their parents’ social media posts may have long-term consequences for their future employment and academic lives (Prakash, 2019).

There are many parents who are motivated to share despite being aware of the possible risks of sharenting (Turgut et al., 2021). Various studies have been conducted on parents’ motivations for sharing photos of their children. Sometimes traditions and expectations regarding an individual’s social role can lead them to give a well-designed impression about this role (Goffman, 1956). According to Humphreys (2018), since individuals are responsible for their social roles in life, they want to strategically create traces that support and reflect these roles. For this reason, the individual may sometimes behave in ways that create desired impressions in the eyes of others. “Impression management” also called self-presentation, is defined as an individual’s attempt to control the impressions that others form about them. The impression an individual makes on others can shape others’ perceptions of and behavior toward the individual (Leary & Kowalski, 1990).

In a study conducted by Holiday et al. (2020) to determine how parents present themselves in their posts toward their children, three different self-presentation categories emerged, namely polished, promotional, and intimate, which may be representations of the parent’s own self. Parents with polished profiles include interventions such as filtering and cropping the content they share to obtain an idealized image. Parents with a promotional profile use their children to promote themselves and their talents. In the posts of parents with intimate profiles, the desire to depict their lives as they are, usually with natural, messy or close-up shots, and to create an album about their child is seen. It is considered essential that the parent be included in any profile, taking into account their technological knowledge and skills regarding editing social media posts. Regardless of the profile, whether the parent who shares has obtained the consent of the child and whether the shared content is approved by the child is also an issue that should be taken into consideration in the case of sharenting.

Even if parents obtain their children’s consent, these shares may not be approved by their children. A study conducted on this subject found that adolescents largely disapprove of sharenting. Adolescents generally consider their parents’ posts to be embarrassing and unnecessary (Verswijvel et al., 2019). On the other hand, adolescents’ approval of sharenting may depend on the content parents disclose online. Adolescents can have a positive view of sharenting as long as their physical appearance is presented in a way that they like and positive situations are shared (Walrave et al., 2022). In this context, it can be said that criteria such as looking good physically and being reflected positively in the parent’s sharing affect children’s perspective on sharenting.

Ouvrein and Verswijvel (2019) state that adolescents try to show themselves look better online than they actually are. For this purpose, adolescents use regulatory online tools such as filters and avoid publishing pictures they don’t like. The same study shows that adolescents think that the photos they define as embarrassing cannot be shared by their parents because such sharing may spoil their online image, which will create a conflict between their parents’ share and the online image they are trying to create. Similarly, in the study conducted by Lipu and Siibak (2019), Estonian young people stated that they are bothered about their parents’ posts that they do not like and that damage their self-image.

Sharenting is not a process that only adolescents are exposed to. Individuals of all ages can be the object of sharenting. However, older children are more empowered to voice their concerns to their parents and ask their parents not to post content featuring them on social media (Nottingham, 2019). As adolescents grow older, they want to take more control of their own privacy management. In emerging adulthood, physical privacy and parental intrusiveness play a determining role in individuals’ relationships with their parents (Aquilino, 2006). Arnett (2000) offers a new developmental period theory that focuses on the ages of 18-25, from the late teens to the mid-twenties. This period, which he calls emerging adulthood, is neither adolescence nor young adulthood. In this period, where independence is a distinguishing feature, young people are more self-focused than ever before and want to make decisions that concern themselves alone (Arnett, 2015). Additionally, considering that physical privacy and parental intervention affect young people’s relationships with their parents (Aquilino, 2006), it is important to understand emerging adults’ perspectives on sharenting.

Research to date has focused mainly on parents’ sharenting motivations and the content they share online (Holiday et al., 2020; Turgut et al., 2021). Although there are studies in the literature on how adolescents evaluate sharenting (Ouvrein & Verswijvel, 2019; Verswijvel et al., 2019; Walrave et al., 2022), there are no studies on the experiences of individuals in emerging adulthood regarding sharenting and how this phenomenon may affect their future. Therefore, obtaining the opinions of emerging adults regarding sharenting through the current study may support future studies on this new phenomenon. In addition, learning what expectations emerging adults have from their parents may contribute to informing parents about the issues that need to be taken into consideration when sharenting. Likewise, it is expected that the data from this study will shed light on counseling service programs for emerging adults who are exposed to sharenting in youth centers, universities and psychological counseling centers that can reach young people. Therefore, the aim of the research is to examine and describe the experiences of emerging adults who are exposed to sharenting, which may have effects on their current and future lives, with a holistic approach and in detail.

In this study, which aimed to explore the experiences of emerging adults regarding sharenting, qualitative research methods and phenomenology design were used to understand the experiences of the participants. According to Firestone (1987), qualitative research provides a description that is detailed enough to show the reader that the conclusion reached by the researcher is meaningful. Additionally, using phenomenology design to understand participants’ experiences produces useful results. The purpose of this pattern is to deeply understand human experiences while investigating the nature of a phenomenon (Van Manen, 2007).

In this study, which aimed to explore the sharenting experiences of emerging adults, the interview technique was used to conduct an in-depth analysis; individual interviews and focus group discussions were also conducted. Focus group discussion, as a qualitative research technique based on interactions between participants, allows participants to discuss a topic together in a group environment (Lawrence Neuman, 2014; Lune & Berg, 2017).

The participants of the study were 30 students in emerging adulthood who were studying at a university in Turkey and were exposed to sharenting. A recruitment flyer was created that included the study title, a short description of the study and the purpose, inclusion criteria, the time commitment for participation, brief information on what will be asked in the interview. Participants were required to be between the ages of 18 and 25, and currently experiencing sharenting to be included in the study. All participants reported that they were not only currently exposed to sharenting, but had also experienced it before emerging adulthood. Before individual interviews and focus group discussions were conducted, participants were informed about the research, and their questions about the study were answered. Individual interviews were held with five female and five male volunteer participants who met the study criteria. Information about the emerging adults who were interviewed individually is presented in Table 1.

As shown in Table 1, the ages of the participants were between 18 and 23 years. In accordance with ethical principles, gender-indicating pseudonyms such as F1 and M1 were used instead of names to represent each participant.

In this research, focus group discussions were held with two separate groups. Collins et al. (2006) state that there should be 6-12 members in focus groups. For this reason, each focus group was formed with a total of 10 participants, five women and five men. The characteristics of the participants who were determined on a voluntary basis by the purposive sampling method for the focus group discussion are presented in Table 2. Purposive sampling is often used in qualitative research to identify and select cases that are rich in information about the phenomenon under study (Palinkas et al., 2015). With this method, individuals or groups who are particularly knowledgeable about a phenomenon of interest or have experience with this phenomenon are identified and selected (Cresswell & Plano Clark, 2011).

The study protocol was approved by Human Research Ethics Committee of the relevant university with the decision number 2022/08-61 at the meeting dated 27.12.2022. In the research, participants were informed about the purpose and importance of the study before the interviews, and the privacy policy explained how the data would be protected and for what purpose it would be used. With the permission and approval of the participants, the interviews were recorded using a voice recorder. At this stage, the names of the participants who were informed about the research were coded and processed. Before moving on to the research questions in both the individual interviews and focus group discussions, the concept of sharenting was described to the participants and the posts that could be shown as examples of this phenomenon from related studies were presented. Then, the participants expressed their experiences and opinions regarding sharenting with open-ended questions.

Individual interviews and focus group discussions conducted within the scope of the research were audio recorded and transcribed digitally without any corrections. Semi-Structured Interview Questions can be found in the supplemental materials. The participants’ answers to the research questions were read by the researcher, and possible codes and categories were noted. The interviews were translated from Turkish to English by the researchers to be presented in the results section. The transcript was read over and reviewed by three English language experts. To divide the data into meaningful subsections and assign categories (Dey, 1993), the coding phase was started by making repeated readings. Categories were created by collecting codes that may have meaningful relationships between them.

According to Richards (2009), interresearcher reliability is the measurement of how much researchers agree when coding the same dataset, and it helps to show that more than one researcher has reached the same coding results. For this reason, the opinions of different experts were used when creating codes and categories. The created codes and categories were examined by an expert from the field of Guidance and Psychological Counseling in addition to the researchers. The suitability of the concepts used for coding was reviewed. The interview transcripts were coded independently by the researchers, themes were created, and differences were compared. After the corrections and joint studies, the reliability between the two coding processes carried out by the researchers was calculated as 96%. The formula suggested by Miles and Huberman (1994) was used to calculate reliability: ∆= ∁ ÷ (∁ + 𝜕)×100. In the formula, ∆: Reliability coefficient, ∁: Number of terms on which there is consensus, ∂: Number of terms on which there is no consensus. According to the coding audit, the consensus among the coding researchers is expected to be at least 80%. After the categories and codes were determined, quotes were made from the participants’ statements to be included in the findings section.

Themes, subthemes, and categories were identified through data regarding emerging adults’ thoughts and experiences regarding their parents’ sharenting. Code frequencies of subthemes and categories are shown in parentheses. The conceptual framework created to make the findings easier to understand is presented in Figure 1.

One of the research questions is “What are the feelings of emerging adults toward sharenting?”. The findings regarding the question showed that unpleasant feelings came to the fore among the participants. Synonyms and similar words such as shame and embarrassment are among the frequently coded expressions. Two different participant statements indicating that the feeling of embarrassment may arise from the content of the post or the sharer are as follows.

“I’m not ashamed because my mother shares my photo; I’m ashamed because I look bad in the photo. If she shares a beautiful photo of me, it is okay, I’m not ashamed of it.” (M7)

“I have no problem with the pictures she shares. However, the problem is that my mother liked them again two months later and brought them back to light.” (F2)

Emerging adults’ feelings of embarrassment may also be accompanied by feelings of anger and unhappiness:

“What I feel… I feel embarrassed when I say it, after all, he does not share it with malicious intent. She shares a favorite photo of herself with her daughter, but at the same time, I’m annoyed. However, I also feel embarrassed and sad. She wants to share a happy moment with good intentions.” (F3)

“Sometimes she shares my childhood photo. She can’t contain herself to show her love to me. I become a laughing stock for all my friends. Later, when she wants to protest against me (she means ‘punish’), she removes my photo or does many other things. I don’t like this. She crops very different photos of me and shares them. She finds that photo beautiful at that moment and shares it, I don’t like this. I usually get angry because she protests.” (F13)

It has also been observed that emerging adults may have pleasant feelings toward the sharenting they experience. The participant, who viewed it as a source of pride for his parents to share his images on social media, expressed his feelings as follows:

“When I got into university, my father shared things like ‘my son got into that university, we took him there’. The comments people wrote below made me very happy.” (M10)

Although emerging adults are dissatisfied with their parents’ sharenting, they also stated that their feelings changed because their parents were happy with this.

“Frankly, I did not like it at first because I did not even know about it. Suddenly, I log in and see that my mother shared something and wrote notes under it. However, later, I realized that they like sharing… I realized that they were happy. I actually did not feel bad either. I also became happy as they shared it.” (F5)

Emerging adults’ approval of their parents’ sharenting depends on the content of the parents’ shares. The interviews revealed that although the participants were happy to share posts reflecting their parents’ success, they were uncomfortable with sloppy visual imagery.

Some emerging adults state that one of their parents’ purposes for sharenting is to show other people their happy family pictures. One participant expressed her discomfort with her parents presenting a happy family picture with the following words:

“I feel like we’re showing off to people, but I think my parents are proud of me; they want to brag. They like it very much. Maybe they like to give the appearance of a happy family portrait.” (F5)

Another participant stated that this behavior is reinforced when her parent’s sharenting receives attention from other users and that the parent who receives positive comments about the child continues this behavior. The fact that their parents are influenced by other parents to share on social media has been criticized by emerging adults, and it has been stated that this has turned into a race and competition.

“I think parents are in such a race with themselves. Someone posts something, ‘my son got into university, he did it’. My family also says, they share their children with pride. My son is in a better situation. Why should not I be proud of my child’s success? Why should not I share this?” (F20)

In the interviews conducted with emerging adults, we found that parents do not share just for show-off purposes; findings have been obtained indicating that they also share beautiful memories to make them permanent by making albums and expressing their love for their children. F18 stated that her parent shared the post for the purpose of making an album: “My mother wants to share a pleasant time she spent with me. After all, it is a place where we share our memories. She wants our good memories to be permanent.”

The opinions that parents share on social media to express their love for their children are also considerable.

“My mother was posting because she missed me when I was at school. As I said, she does it with pure intentions when I am around her. It is like she’s showing that she loves me there. Because my mother is not someone who can show her love with words and actions. It is kind of like a show of affection in our house.” (F4)

Half of the emerging adults stated that they did not expect sharenting to have a positive or negative impact on their future. In addition, parents’ attempts to “find a suitable spouse for the future” by sharing their children’s photos on social media were evaluated positively by six participants and negatively by two participants. Likewise, one of the participants stated that sharenting would have a positive impact on their future employment, while the majority stated that their future could be negatively affected by their digital footprint.

Some emerging adults, both male and female, stated that their parents’ involvement in social media posts could help them meet their future spouses:

“In my opinion, this affects the marriage issue. My mother shares my photo and shows me some girls’ comments. ‘Look, that nurse likes the photo. Her profession is also good… I think you should get married’, she says. In my opinion, sharenting affects the future of marriage. I think it is a positive effect.” (M24)

Additionally, emerging adults evaluated their parents’ social media posts positively when they served to perpetuate memories: “My father always shares, too. At least it remains a memory. Even though I do not like it at all, memories are actually accumulating. On the other hand, this is a beautiful thing.” (M30)

Emerging adults stated that they were worried about their parents creating digital footprints through their interactions by sharing photos of them on social media: “Someone sees my photos, too. One day in the future, of course, I will come across it. Someone may come and say ‘Oh, yes you did that’ or something like that. Whether it is a good thing or a bad thing…” (F20)

One of the emerging adults stated that the situation could be improved at this age because of their ability to cope with the consequences of sharenting behavior. For this reason, the participants thought that posts at these ages were less likely to have an impact as negative as those in childhood:

“If my parents did not share it when I was a child, I do not think it would affect my future much. Because when I can present my own ideas, I can get the photos removed. Or I can explain those photos.” (M19)

There are also opinions among emerging adults that sharenting may negatively affect them through the evil eye.

“I do not think it can affect my future at this age. However, I am always afraid of being caught by the evil eye because of my success-themed photos with fancy and beautiful comments made by my mother. In fact, when I express this, she suddenly stops sharing.” (M26)

Within the scope of the research, participants were asked, “How do you think your parents’ sharing of your information and images on social media will affect your future?”. When the answers to the questions were examined, half of the participants stated that they did not expect any effect. Participant opinions stating that sharenting will not have a positive or negative impact on their future due to the content of their parents’ shares or selecting audience authorized to view the shares are as follows:

“I do not think it will have any impact on my future. For example, the photos on our profile are the photos we take on the day of the Eid, on the morning of the Eid, or, I do not know, when we go to a wedding… I do not think it will reflect on my future in a bad or good way.” (M10)

When asked how they coped with sharenting, statements regarding the strategy of removing the share were frequently repeated by the participants. While some of the participants asked their parents to remove the post, some stated that they logged into the parent’s social media account and did the deletion themselves:

“A few times when my father shared something I did not want, I took his phone and deleted the post after he shared it.” (F29)

One-third of the emerging adults reported not coping with sharenting. F15, who does not see being included in her parents’ social media posts as a situation to address, stated, “I do not need to deal with it because I am not bothered”. The following participant statement can be given as an example of how emerging adults who see their parents being happy with sharenting avoid fighting this behavior:

“You know, sometimes people comment or reply. They never say anything bad; of course, I have not come across it. This pleases them (parents). So I do not react much.” (F5)

It has been observed that one of the coping methods used by emerging adults against sharenting is to offer their parents an alternative and determine a post that is approved by both parties.

“Even on my birthday, I send my parents some photos. ‘Share only this one on my birthday’, I say.” (M24)

“I requested to delete it several times: Can you remove this? Let us share another one instead.” (M28)

It has been determined that limiting the people authorized to see the share in the privacy settings of social media applications is among the methods used by emerging adults to cope with the consequences of sharenting. In this context, the following participant expressions can be given as examples:

“The only thing I can do is that I can do this when my mother is not around, for example, I remove my friends from her followers list. There may be ridiculous photos. I sometimes block my uncles, so they do not see them.” (F13)

“Of course, my own family members do not understand social media settings very well. Since they do not know, I change the privacy settings. I do not want some people to see what my parents share on WhatsApp. I go into privacy settings and block them from viewing stories directly.” (M22)

One in three emerging adults wanted their opinion to be taken before the share was posted:

“They can ask me that the photo can be shared or not. I say: ‘Let me see the photo or edit it, then you can share it that way. Let us find the middle ground this way.’ I do not want them to share it without asking me.” (F3)

“They can share it after asking me, that is enough. I feel bad when I see my own picture on social media suddenly. For example, when a family photo is taken, I do not want it to be shared because I look bad in it… Or even if they share it, I do not want them to tag me.” (F1)

Emerging adults want their parents to pay attention to privacy settings when viewing a post. It is important for emerging adults to know who can view their parents’ posts.

“It is also very important to me who will see the photo. I have my own will too. I also have my own friendships that I have established. There is no such thing right now, but one day I may not be on good terms with a relative or an acquaintance of my mother. They do not need to see my photo; it is not something I want. Therefore, who can view the post is an important issue.” (M9)

The issue that emerging adults expect their parents to pay the most attention to sharenting is the expectation of respect for impression management, which was mentioned by half of the participants and was the most repeated statement. It has been observed that emerging adults who consider sharenting to be an impression management problem have negative attitudes toward it. Emerging adults find the difference between their parents’ posts and their own posts to be annoying:

“One of my eyes is defective, so it looks different from the other one. However, I can make that eye look normal whenever I want. However, I cannot do this in every photo because they share photos where my eyes are too visible. This annoys me so much. It would be better for me if they shared photos in which I look better and my eyes look more normal. However, it does not work like that. They share photos in which they look beautiful.” (M7)

F4 pointed out the difference between her parents’ shares and her own shares: “I pay more attention to the shape of my face when posing in my own posts. However, my mother does not pay attention to this.”

Emerging adults, who express their expectations from their parents in their social media posts, feel uncomfortable when their parents share photos that they define as private on social media, and they expect their privacy to be respected while sharing these photos: “I have a private life too. She needs to post in a way that cannot interfere with my private life, even though she is my mother.” (M28)

Emerging adults who expect respect for their private lives on social media want their parents to be more careful in sharing not only their images but also their private information, such as identity and academic documents: “My mother does not pay much attention, so her posts may contain explicit information about me. I mean my personal information. I expect more attention to be paid. (…) My school reports and my ID number, etc. My birth dates are obvious…” (F20)

Emerging adults want their parents to empathize with them about how they might be affected by sharenting. F2 expressed the expectation on this subject with the following words: “I would like them to ask me if I would like this memory of mine to be shared or to think about how I would feel when I encounter them.” F27 stated, “It would be enough if they paid attention to whether it matters to me or not. What does that shared photo mean to me? Although I do not think they will think much about it, but…”

The majority of the emerging adults stated that sharenting had no effect on their relationship with their parents. M11 said, “I cannot say that it affected me very much. Neither positive nor negative. It does not have any effect.” M24 expressed it as follows: “So it is normal. After sharing, we behave the same way as we normally do. It does not make any difference.”

The statements of emerging adults who stated that their parents’ sharing of images and photos of themselves on social media negatively affected their relationships are as follows:

“Our relationship is often negatively affected. ‘Mom, delete it’ I say. She deletes it, but she sulks for a few days. She even wanted me to share her. ‘You never share me on Mother’s Day. Other daughters prepare videos and share them. Why do not you do it?’ she says. I feel wrong when I’m right. Our communication is not going well on this issue.” (F27)

Some of the participants stated that although they were not happy with their parents’ shares, they avoided conflict because they gave more importance to their closeness with them: “Even though I do not like my parents’ share, I do not mind it because my love for my family is greater than my own desire.” (M26)

M10 stated that he was happy with the positive feedback given to his parent’s post and that the post had a positive impact on their relationship and said, “It has a better effect. I’m truly happy when I get in there (social media). It makes me happy that my mother shares me and… Nice thoughts people write about me.” M8 explained that sharentging, which he saw as the value his father gave to him, affected their relationship positively as follows: “My father’s posts about me affect me positively. A special day or a photo taken on my father’s phone… I feel like he truly cares about me. That is why he shares it”

Whether emerging adults’ relationships with their parents are affected positively or negatively is related to the content of the post:

“If the post is something I like, it makes me happy. For example, my mom shared a post on International Day of the Girl Child when I least expected it. I was at school, and it got emotional because I was away. I truly liked it. However, if someone shares a photo I do not want without my permission, tension may arise.” (F25)

“To be honest, I edit my photos, make changes, etc. I do not like it when my father shares this out of the blue. It leaves a negative impact on me. I do not like it. This time, maybe we are having a small-scale controversy.” (F3)

Emotion. Emerging adults are more likely to repeat expressions of shame when their photos, videos and information are shared on social media by their parents, compared to other emotions. The feelings of shame of emerging adults may arise from the content of the post or the sharer. They find the content shared by their parents embarrassing and feel uncomfortable when other people see these images. Even if they have a photo that they can share on their own social media accounts, they are embarrassed to have it shared by their parents. A study conducted with adolescents (Verswijvel et al., 2019) showed that children find sharenting shameful and unnecessary. These findings can be interpreted as the feeling of shame toward sharenting during adolescence continuing into emerging adulthood.

Anger can also be added to the embarrassment that sharenting creates in emerging adults. One of the participants stated that she was very angry because she became the laughing stock of her friends when her mother punished her through a social media post. While it is common to see videos in which younger children are openly shamed by their parents on social media as punishment for various mistakes they have made (Kinghorn, 2018), it is noteworthy that a young person in emerging adulthood is subjected to this behavior.

Emerging adults who take part in their parents’ posts are happy when they perceive that their parents are proud of them and when they see the positive comments made on the post. Therefore, how emerging adults feel about sharenting may depend on the content of the share. This finding is consistent with Lipu and Siibak’s (2019) study involving Estonian mothers and children regarding sharenting on Facebook. Accordingly, while young people are proud of their parents’ posts when they share posts reflecting their success, they are uncomfortable with careless posts that may negatively affect their self-image.

Another factor that affects emerging adults’ feelings toward their parents’ posts is how the parent feels. Although some of the emerging adults were dissatisfied with the sharenting, they expressed that they were happy that their parents liked it. In short, it can be said that they consider their parents’ happiness more important than the results of sharenting.

Parents’ Sharenting Motivation. Emerging adults who perceived sharenting as an indication of their parents’ love for them stated that their parents did this with sincere intentions. Likewise, they sincerely evaluated sharenting when parents used social media to create albums to make their memories with their children permanent. According to Holiday et al. (2020), it is common for parents to share photos that reflect situations as they are to immortalize their memories with their children.

When parents share posts to present a picture of a happy family, compete with other parents, and brag about their children, adults perceive this as an ostentatious intention. According to emerging adults who are uncomfortable with parents documenting and sharing the special moments they experience with their children and families on social media, it is important for their parents that other followers give the desired feedback to these shares. Emerging adults stated that sharenting was reinforced when it received attention from other users and that parents who received positive comments continued this behavior. The parent’s habit of posting frequently and having a social network that approves of sharing reinforces sharenting (Ranzini et al., 2020). The view that this has turned into a race between parents and that parents are influenced by each other about sharenting is common among emerging adults. In this competitive process, parents also share documents highlighting success, such as graduation certificates and report cards, to brag about their children’s achievements. Latipah et al. (2020) emphasize that the negative effects of this competition between parents, such as comparing their child with someone else’s child, can lead to resentment and conflict.

Impact of Sharenting on the Future. Research findings have shown that the majority of emerging adults do not expect their parents’ sharenting to have a positive or negative impact on their future. One of the reasons for this may be that the content of parents’ posts is not sufficient to affect the child’s future. While expressing their experiences regarding sharenting, emerging adults explained that their parents avoided sharing that would put them in trouble and shared carefully and risk-free. They also believe that due to their age, this situation will not negatively affect their future and that being exposed to sharenting at a younger age may cause greater problems. Another reason why emerging adults think that sharenting will not have any impact on their future may be that they do not have enough information about the consequences of this new phenomenon (such as the digital footprint and employment). Although it is predicted that the intense digital footprints of today’s children may have long-term consequences for their future education and employment (Prakash, 2019), very few emerging adults stated that they were worried about their parents creating digital footprints by sharing photos of them on social media.

Although emerging adults generally do not expect sharenting to have a major impact on their education and work lives, they stated that this phenomenon could be effective in determining their future spouses. According to Arnett (2000), emerging adulthood is an ideal period when parental intervention decreases, there is no pressure on marital duties, and various romantic and sexual experiences occur. However, emerging adults stated that parents attempted to search for spouses for their children through social media posts. However, two different views have emerged among emerging adults regarding parents’ use of social media to find a suitable spouse for their children. Emerging adults who do not see any harm from the introduction method, known as an arranged date in Turkish culture, and who are being carried out by parents on social media consider this situation an opportunity. However, there are also emerging adults who find their parent’s attempt to find a mate by sharing their photo on social media annoying.

Even though they do not see it as a long-term effect, emerging adults are afraid that the posts in which their parents brag about them will cause an evil eye. The evil eye is a supernatural belief in a curse caused by a malevolent gaze driven by envy. According to the belief, if any one looks at something that is good with an envious eye, that envy can turn into a curse that will ruin the good fortune of the other person. So people seek various ways to ward off this curse (Hargitai, 2018). One of these ways is to hide and not show people things that might cause envious looks. Although parents’ attitudes toward the evil eye are not known due to the scope of the research, it is noteworthy that when a participant told his parent that he was worried about being touched by the evil eye due to his post, his parent removed the post. Examining cultural values as factors affecting sharing attitudes can add new dimensions to this phenomenon. A study aiming to examine the sharenting behavior of Iranian parents on Instagram showed that some parents’ concerns about sharenting and avoiding sharing are due to the cultural manifestation of the ‘evil eye’ (Esfandiari & Yao, 2022).

Coping Strategies. Some emerging adults ask their parents to remove the post they feel uncomfortable with. In cases where parents resist deleting the post, emerging adults remove the post from their parents’ social media accounts by taking their phones or accessing it in another way. Additionally, emerging adults who do not want their parents’ posts to appear on their profiles do not approve of their parents tagging them. These findings point to similar results to those of Walrave et al.’s (2022) study examining adolescents’ sharenting experiences. Although there is no information about the coping strategies of younger age groups, the methods used by children to cope with the consequences of sharenting during adolescence and emerging adulthood are similar.

Using the “determining people authorized to see the share” feature offered by social media platforms through privacy settings is another way for emerging adults to address the consequences of sharenting. Changing privacy settings by logging in from the parent’s account or removing posts without the parent’s knowledge may lead to new conflicts between the parent and child. In adolescence, individuals’ perceptions of conflict in relationships with their parents increase in emerging adulthood (Parra et al., 2015). Some emerging adults who do not want to experience conflict with their parents prefer to choose a sharing option that is approved by both parties by offering them a sharing alternative.

Emerging adults who do not see being included in their parents’ social media posts as a problem do not react to their parents’ posts. As mentioned before, this may be related to the content of the parent’s share, or it may be related to how the emerging adult perceives the possible consequences of the sharenting phenomenon. It has been observed that emerging adults who see their parents being happy with sharenting avoid struggling with this behavior. Emerging adults who previously tried to cope with sharenting but did not obtain results reported that they changed their methods. They stated that ignoring parents’ sharenting behaviors and not reacting was an effective coping method and that these behaviors disappeared. In summary, although emerging adults’ methods of dealing with sharenting are occasionally effective, it is not always possible to combat parents with high sharenting motivation.

Expectation. The issue that emerging adults expect their parents to pay most attention to regarding sharenting is the expectation of respect for impression management. Emerging adults are uncomfortable with the difference between the posts they want to present themselves on social media and the posts their parents share. Emerging adults do not want quickly and carelessly taken photos of their parents to be shared by their parents. There is an inconsistency between the parents’ unfiltered and unedited posts and the emerging adult’s posts. A study conducted by Ouvrein and Verswijvel (2019) states that adolescents try to make themselves look slightly better on social media regarding their physical appearance. For this purpose, adolescents use editing tools such as filters and avoid publishing pictures they do not like. In light of the findings of the current research, this attitude is also common among emerging adults. Emerging adults found sharenting more acceptable if the photo shared by their parents was a photo they could share on their own social media accounts. This finding is similar to the findings of the study conducted by Walrave et al. (2022), which showed that adolescents’ approval of sharenting depends on the content that parents disclose online and that adolescents perceive sharenting positively when it is presented nicely.

According to the research findings, one in every three emerging adults wants their parents to consult with them before sharing. Similarly, in a study conducted by Sarkadi et al. (2020), it was observed that children, regardless of age, wanted their parents to consult with them before taking and publishing photos. According to emerging adults, their parents do not take these expectations into account, and they are informed only after the post is shared. These findings are consistent with research findings that some mothers believe that there is no need to obtain permission from the child when sharing photos about their children (Günüç, 2020) and research findings that emphasize that there is a deep disagreement between parents and children about obtaining permission from children when sharing photos on social media (Lipu & Siibak, 2019).

As a result of the participants’ answers to the questions, the sub-theme of selecting audience, which is one of the coping strategies, also emerged in the sub-theme of expectation as a point that the participants should pay attention to from their parents. These precautions that they expect from their parents before sharing also become a matter to be coped with by emerging adults if they aren’t taken. Emerging adults complain that their parents do not take seriously their concerns about the target audience, who might view the post and excuse that viewers are limited to relatives and close circles. However, some emerging adults do not want their posts to be viewed by their close circle, even if they are relatives. Dewi et al. (2020) also reported that while most mothers who regularly share the moments they spend with their children on Instagram share their children’s personal or intimate moments, only a few of them limit shared photos via account privacy.

Emerging adults largely reported that their parents avoid sharing personally identifiable photos. However, they also expect their parents to be more careful about not sharing some of their personal information. They stated that their parents did not share images that were risky and violated privacy to put them in a difficult situation, but they wanted their parents to be more careful in sharing not only the images but also their private information, such as identity and academic documents. Parents sometimes share their children’s documents, such as report cards, diplomas and assignment results, to showcase their children’s achievements. Although emerging adults want their personal information to be censored before these posts are shared, they complain that their parents do not pay attention to these issues and share screenshots without cropping.

The Effect of Sharenting on the Parent–Child Relationship. According to the research findings, more than half of the participants stated that sharenting had no effect on their relationships with their parents. Emerging adults stated that even if they were not happy with their parents’ posts, they avoided conflict because they gave more importance to their relationships with them. For example, one participant chose to appear to approve of subsequent posts because her reaction to the post upset her mother. Verswijvel et al. (2019) investigated the relationship between closeness with parents and attitudes toward sharenting, and it was observed that adolescents who were closer to their parents had a more positive attitude toward sharenting. One of the key questions participants were asked as an introduction to the research questions was how they described their current relationship with their parents. All participants described a moderate or high level of closeness with their parents. This may explain their attitude toward preserving their relationships by endorsing sharenting, albeit reluctantly.

The approval of sharenting by emerging adults may be related to how much legitimate authority they give their parents. Padilla-Walker et al. (2014) identified different perspectives that emerging adults display regarding the legitimate authority of their parents. One of these is emerging adults, who are in the parental control group, where children give their parents control over all areas. The emerging adults in this current study group allowed their parents to have more control and to trust their parents when making decisions in various areas of their lives. Although it is noted that physical privacy and parental intervention play a decisive role in one’s relationships with one’s parents in emerging adulthood (Aquilino, 2006), it can be said that emerging adults do not talk much about the negative impact of sharenting on their relationships with their parents. In addition to emerging adults’ close relationships with their parents, parents’ careful selection of the content they share and sharing, which will not harm privacy, may also be the reason for this situation.

Participants stated that whether their relationship with their parents was affected positively or negatively was related to the content of the post and emphasized that a post they liked did not lead to conflict. However, posts that they do not like about themselves physically and without their consent lead to conflicts with their parents. This may be due to the reaction to parental intervention during emerging adulthood. When emerging adults perceive their parents’ behaviors as interfering with their daily goals and routines, they perceive their parents’ behaviors more negatively (Scheinfeld & Worley, 2018). However, it is noteworthy that emerging adults who are happy with positive feedback on shares and who see it as a value given to themselves state that sharenting positively affects their relationships with their parents.

This study has several limitations. First, this study focused only on the 18-25 age range, which is the emerging adulthood period. Individuals in different adulthood periods may have different perspectives on social media, privacy and independence. Including individuals with sharenting experience from different age groups in future studies may be beneficial in terms of data diversity. The participants of the study were limited to 30 students studying at the university. It may be appropriate to repeat this study with a larger and more diverse sample of participants to further diversify the research findings. The interviews with participants were conducted online because distance education was conducted at the time the research data were collected. For this reason, research in which interviews are conducted face to face can be conducted.

This study has a number of implications for practitioners and researchers. In light of research findings regarding emerging adults’ expectations regarding sharenting, psychological counselors can carry out informative studies for parents about the conscious use of social media, the consequences of sharenting, and issues that need attention. Considering that sharenting may have an impact on young people’s future lives on issues such as the digital footprint and employment, informative training can be given to young people on coping with the dark side of this new phenomenon. While these studies can be carried out by counsellor teachers in schools, it is considered important to provide the same support to university students in emerging adulthood.

Emerging adults who attach great importance to impression management on social media find the difference between their parents’ careless posts and their own edited posts embarrassing. Psychological support studies can be carried out by taking into account dynamics such as parents and social media to help emerging adults cope with the problems they experience regarding social appearance anxiety, body image and self-presentation. In this study, only the experiences of emerging adults regarding parental shares were examined. As the participants stated, sharenting is not carried out only by parents. Future studies can include other people in children’s immediate environment, such as relatives, close family friends and teachers, who share information about them. The experiences of emerging adults regarding sharenting were discussed, and how they perceived their parents’ sharenting motivations was evaluated. In new studies to be conducted with parents, self-assessments of parents regarding their sharenting motivation may be useful for comparison with the findings of this study.

M.M.C., E.S.Ş.: Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content and agreed for all aspects of the work. M.M.C, E.S.Ş.: Final approval of the version to be published. All authors wrote the paper together and have read and approved the content of the manuscript.

This study is derived from a master’s thesis prepared by the first author under the supervision of the second author.

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. I confirm that this work is original and has not been published elsewhere, nor is it currently under consideration for publication elsewhere. The authors meet the authorship criteria and approve the article.

The study protocol was approved by the Aksaray University Human Research Ethics Committee with the decision number 2022/08-61 at the meeting dated 27.12.2022.

We are unable to give public access to the data, which includes transcripts of individual and focus group interviews, with the public because of the work with human subjects.