The document discusses

1. TO SHARE OR NOT TO SHARE:
PRIVACY PROTECTION AND BOUNDARY MANAGEMENT
WHEN “#SHARENTING” ON INSTAGRAM
Dr. Anne Suphan (University of Hohenheim)
@anne_suphan
eMail: anne.suphan@uni-hohenheim.de
Dr. Anatoliy Gruzd(Ryerson University)
@gruzd
eMail: gruzd@ryerson.ca

2. DISCLAIMER
To preserve the anonymity of the users, the
images presented were modified using the ‘curly
hair’ filter in the Prisma application.

3. „Sharenting is [the] shorthand term
denoting when parents share
information about themselves and
their children online.
- Blum-Ross, A., & Livingstone, S. (2017).

4. Self-presentation as parents on Instagram:
Why do parents (over)share photos of children & parenthood on Instagram?

5. BENEFITS OF SHARENTING
➤ Social Participation: „I would like family and friends to participate in my
life.“
➤ Pride Confirmation: „I am proud of my child and therefore I would like to
show it to the whole world.“
➤ Envy of others: „It feels good to show my child to others and maybe some
even get a little bit envious.“
➤ Perceived Convenience: „In the case of an extensive network of friends
and family, it is of course advantageous if one can show his children
without immense effort.“
(Wagner, A., & Gasche, L. A. (2018))

6. Self-presentation of „parenting“ on Instagram:
What is needed to be identified as parents on Instagram and what does it costs?

7. COSTS FOR THE CHILD
➤ Privacy risks for the child: The risk to lose the control over private
information about the child.
„The photo is quickly distributed and might fall into wrong hands.“
➤ Face risks for the child: The risk that the child being embarrassed, being
the victim of cyber-bullying or simply being negatively evaluated.
„There is a fundamental risk that the child will be ashamed of the picture
later.“
(Wagner, A., & Gasche, L. A. (2018))

8. DIGITAL DILEMMA OF PARENTING
SELF-PRESENTATION
➤ Presentation of one’s own
identity as a parent means
making public aspects of a
(potentially vulnerable)
child’s life.
PRIVACY PROTECTION
➤ At the same time, because
they are the parent, they are
precisely the person
primarily responsible for
protecting child’s privacy.
(Blum-Ross, A., & Livingstone, S. (2017))
VS.

9. ➤ Actively cover the child’s face with emoticons or to take a picture without
showing a face (40%*).
➤ Share pictures with harmless content (37%*).
➤ Reduce the number of posts by sharing only special moments (5%*)
➤ Hide information like name, location and age (2%*).
➤ Share pictures only as long as the child is under 2 years old (1%*).
STRATEGIES TO DEAL WITH THE DILEMMA
* These are self-reported privacy intentions/
strategies of parents!
(Wagner, A., & Gasche, L. A. (2018))

10. PRIVACY PARADOX
ATTITUDES
➤ Internet users’ attitudes show
that users are highly
concerned about their privacy
and the collection and use of
their personal information.
BEHAVIOUR
➤ Individuals reveal personal
information for relatively
small rewards (for drawing
the attention of peers).
(Kokolakis, S. (2017))
VS.

11. RESEARCH QUESTIONS
How do parents deal with the digital
dilemma of boundary management
(„digital self vs. digital child“)?
To what extent are privacy protection
practices influenced by parents general
digital presentation of lifestyle (and self)?
1
2

12. THEORY
… lifestyle and digital presentation of self.

13. „
- Stebbins, R. A. (1997).
A lifestyle is a distinctive set of shared
patterns of tangible behaviour that is
organised around a set of coherent interests
or social conditions or both, that is explained
and justified by a set of related values,
attitudes, and orientations and that, under
certain conditions, becomes the basis for a
separate, common social identity for its
participants.

14. DETERMINANTS OF LIFESTYLE
LIFESTYLE
age gender
ethnic
origin
spatial
context
social
background

15. THE (IN)VISIBLE
habitus
digital
presentation of
self
digital
presentation of
lifestyle
„Black Box“
(invisible/ incorporated)
Visible
privacy
attitudes
privacy
behaviour

16. DATA COLLECTION
… finding a promising approach.

17. Approach Idea Pro Con
#motherhood
compare with #fatherhood,
identify gender as an
influence
regional /cultural
unspecific
#motherhoodun
plugged
„realistic“ representation of
motherhood as
representation of lifestyle
regional cultural
unspecific,
gendered
#familylife
„realistic“ representation of
family life as representation
of lifestyle
gender neutral
regional/ cultural
unspecific
#mamablogger
compare with #papablogger,
identify gender as an
influence
cultural specific
define themselves
as „blogger“
#lebenmitkind
(life with a child)
„realistic“ representation of
family life as representation
of lifestyle
cultural specific,
genderneutral,
generalist
COMPARISON OF DIFFERENT APPROACHES

18. APPROACH #LEBENMITKIND(ERN)
Netlytic.
Instagram data
#lebenmitkind
(German language)
** 08/01/2018-08/07/2018
Final** dataset.
N=2994 postings of
public accounts

19. DATA CLEANING
Final dataset.
N=2994 postings
Profile information.
Collecting profile
information on the
n=200 accounts (most
frequently posting
accounts).
★ Posts
★ Followers
★ Following
★ Profile description
★ Demographics

20. Profile information.
Collecting profile
information on the
n=200 most frequently
posting accounts.
★ Posts
★ Followers
★ Friends
★ Profile description
★ Demographics
DATA CLEANING
Online-Shops
(n=34).
Deleted for further
analysis.
Unavailable
(n=1).
Deleted for further
analysis.

21. DATA CLEANING
Celebreties
(n=24).
(more than 5000 followers)
Micro-Celebreties
(n=46).
(1000-5000 followers)
Non-Celebreties
(n=95).
(less than 1000 followers)
Profile information.
Collecting profile
information on the
n=200 most frequently
posting accounts.
★ Posts
★ Followers
★ Friends
★ Profile description
★ Demographics

22. DATA CLEANING
Profile information.
Collecting profile
information on the
n=165 most frequently
posting accounts.
★ Posts
★ Followers
★ Friends
★ Profile description
★ Demographics
Final test dataset.
N=862 images &
descriptions of 162
Instagram accounts

23. DATA ANALYSIS
… dealing with images.

24. ANALYSING 862 IMAGES…
… manually or automated? Both!

25. DATA ANALYSIS STRATEGY - RQ1
Automated image analysis to identify
relevant images that show children
Manual image analysis to analyse
privacy protection within the images
How do parents deal with
the digital dilemma of
boundary management?
Quantitative analysis

26. CLARIFAI VS. GOOGLE’S CLOUD VISION
Using clarifai.com API.
Automated analysis of 757
images.
➤ More detailed categories.
➤ Not only analysing
images objects. Also
describing them.
Using Cloud Vision API.
Automated analysis of 757
images.
➤ Less detailed categories
but lower probability
threshold.
➤ Mainly analysing objects
at images.

27. CLARIFAI - EXAMPLE A
indoors
child
family
people
girl
baby 95 %
96 %
98 %
98 %
99 %
99 %

28. CLOUD VISION - EXAMPLE A
shoulder
joint
leg
girl
standing
arm 72 %
74 %
75 %
80 %
83 %
87 %

29. CLARIFAI - EXAMPLE B
people
recreation
fun
adult
leisure
vehicle
child 93 %
94 %
95 %
95 %
97 %
98 %
99 %

30. CLOUD VISION - EXAMPLE B
water
vehicle
fun
leisure
tourism
vacation
recreation 68 %
71 %
71 %
72 %
72 %
73 %
92 %

31. CLARIFAI VS. GOOGLE’S CLOUD VISION
Using clarifai.com API.
Automated analysis of 757
images.
➤ More detailed categories.
➤ Not only analysing
images objects. Also
describing them.
Using Cloud Vision API.
Automated analysis of 757
images.
➤ Less detailed categories
but lower probability
threshold.
➤ Mainly analysing objects
at images.
Using the clarifai API.

32. CODING PRIVACY PROTECTION*
A. Privacy protection through face covering (FC)
1= approx. 100% of face is complete visible
2= more than 50% of face is visible
3= less than 50% of face is visible
4= 0% of face is visible (e.g. only back part of head, only body is on image)
5= filters are used to cover largely parts of face
👶
👶
👶
😎
👶

33. CODING PRIVACY PROTECTION*
A. Degree of nudity (N)
0= body is completely covered or not visible
1= child wears underwear or swimwear (legs and arms are naked)
2= child wears a diaper (legs, arms and upper body are naked)
3= child is completely naked (whole body is naked)
👚👖
👙

34. CODING PRIVACY PROTECTION - EXAMPLES
FC=4, N=3 FC=3, N=1 FC=5, N=0

35. CODING PRIVACY PROTECTION
Coding was applied manually to all
images that were classified by
Clarifai as (n=601).
➤ child OR
➤ girl OR
➤ boy OR
➤ baby OR
➤ family OR
➤ person.
n=145 didn’t showed any children but parents.
n= 456 images were coded concerning privacy
protection.

36. FIRST RESULTS
… of the pre-study.

37. N min max average S.D.
age of account
owner
260 22 42 28,83 5,277
# of children 549 1 4 1,35 0,606
likes/ post 755 0 2769 90,29 179,034
DESCRIPTIVES - WHO IS SHARENTING ON INSTAGRAM?

38. N %
single parent 11 1 %
married 340 45 %
missing 407 54 %
Total 758 100 %
DESCRIPTIVES - WHO IS SHARENTING ON INSTAGRAM?
Could this be interpreted
as an indicator for
differences in lifestyle?
N %
female 691 91 %
male 26 3 %
both parents 33 4 %
missing 8 1 %
Total 758 100 %
In line with previous research:
„[M]others take on the
responsibility of sharing
content about their children
more than fathers do.“
(Ammari et al., 2015)

39. DESCRIPTIVES - FACE PROTECTION
N % cumulative %
1 114 25 25
2 66 15 40
3 63 14 53
4 182 40 93
5 31 7 100
Total 456 100
On 25% of shared images the face of child/
children are completely visible.
👶
👶
👶
😎
👶

40. DESCRIPTIVES - FACE PROTECTION
N % cumulative %
1 114 25 25
2 66 15 40
3 63 14 53
4 182 40 93
5 31 7 100
Total 456 100
On the other side, 40% of shared images do not
show the face of child/ children.
👶
👶
👶
😎
👶

41. DESCRIPTIVES - DEGREE OF NUDITY
n % cumulative %
0 354 78 78
1 54 12 90
2 45 10 99
3 3 1 100
Total 456 100
On most shared images with a child (78%) the body
of the child is covered with clothes.
👚👖
👙

42. DISTRIBUTION OF FACE PROTECTION BY NUDITY
On 31% of images that show a child almost naked,
the face of the child is completely visible.
0 1 2 3 Total
1 26 % 15 % 31 % 0 % 25 %
2 14 % 15 % 20 % 0 % 15 %
3 13 % 28 % 4 % 33 % 14 %
4 40 % 37 % 38 % 67 % 40 %
5 7 % 6 % 7 % 0 % 7 %
Total 100 % 100 % 100 % 100 % 100 %
👶
👶
👶
😎
👶
👚
👖 👙

43. DISTRIBUTION OF FACE PROTECTION BY NUDITY
On 40% of images that show a child completely
covered by clothes, the face of the child is not
visible at all.
0 1 2 3 Total
1 26 % 15 % 31 % 0 % 25 %
2 14 % 15 % 20 % 0 % 15 %
3 13 % 28 % 4 % 33 % 14 %
4 40 % 37 % 38 % 67 % 40 %
5 7 % 6 % 7 % 0 % 7 %
Total 100 % 100 % 100 % 100 % 100 %
👶
👶
👶
😎
👶
👚
👖 👙

44. Spearman-
Rho followers following
posts coefficient ,371** ,417**
sign. 0,000 0,000
N 755 755
THE MORE YOU GIVE, THE MORE YOU GET!
Spearman-
Rho following likes/ post
followers coefficient ,596** ,627**
sign. 0,000 0,000
N 755 755

45. THE MORE YOU GIVE, THE LESS YOU CARE?
☞The older the parents and the more often they
post parenting content on Instagram, the less
they protect the face of their children.
Spearman-Rho age frequency
face
protection
coefficient -,226** -,113*
sign. 0,004 0,016
N 159 455

46. THE MORE NAKED, THE MORE POPULAR?
☞The degree of nudity correlates positive with
the amount of follower and likes of a post.
Spearman-Rho follower likes/ posts
degree of
nudity
coefficient ,101* ,111*
sign. 0,032 0,018
N 455 455

47. WHAT’S NEXT?
… work in progress.

48. DATA ANALYSIS STRATEGY - RQ2 (WIP)
Qualitative ethnography of n=10
instagram accounts
Automated image analysis of all images
posted by the accounts
To what extent are privacy
protection practices
influenced by parents
general digital presentation
of lifestyle (and self)?
Mixed methods: Quantitative and
qualitative analysis

49. ETHNOGRAPHY
Selection criteria.
< 1.000 followers
(youngest) child is between 0-3 years old
btw. 50-500 posts

50. ETHNOGRAPHY
Subsample description.
n=10
10 female
7 married, 1 single parent
∅ 181 posts (min. 53; max. 416)
∅ 289 follower (min. 86; max. 742)
∅ 24,7 years old (min. 22; max. 28)
∅ 0,46 posts per day (min. 0,09; max. 10,2)
∅ 2,5 face protection (min. 1; max. 5)
∅ 0,7 degree of nudity (min. 0; max. 2)

51. 3 TYPES OF SHARENTING PROFILES
I.
It’s all about me!
II.
It’s all about my child
and my family!
III.
Me, my life and my
family!

52. ANNA: IT’S ALL ABOUT ME
★ 22 years old, married
★ 1 son (6-12 months old)
★ 54 posts
★ instagram account since
July 11 2018

53. ANNA: IT’S ALL ABOUT ME
★ Most images are selfies and #ootd,
★ Anna’s body and face is mostly complete visible,
★ Brand and price of the outfits are named.

54. ANNA: IT’S ALL ABOUT ME
★ Images representing „mothering“ can be
described as situations of giving love, hugs and
kisses.
★ Anna is always very present in these images.
★ There is only 1 image showing the child with its
father.

55. ANNA: IT’S ALL ABOUT ME
★ In the beginning the child was represented with
>50% face protection.
★ Now more and more images were shared
without any face protection.

56. ANNA: IT’S ALL ABOUT ME
woman
fashion
portrait 32 %
44 %
65 %
65% of all images on Anna’s Instagram account
were categorised by clarifai to show a woman.

57. CLARA: IT’S ALL ABOUT THE CHILD
➤ 28 years old, married
➤ 1 son (14 months old)
➤ 53 posts
➤ instagram account since
September 25th 2017

58. ★ This is the only image showing Clara!
CLARA: IT’S ALL ABOUT THE CHILD

59. CLARA: IT’S ALL ABOUT THE CHILD
★ Most pictures show everyday life situation with
a child.
★ In the beginning images of the child had 100%
face protection.
★ Now approx. 50% of the face is visible.

60. CLARA: IT’S ALL ABOUT THE CHILD
★ The father is often represented as involved in
everyday life activities.

61. child
family
indoors 23 %
30 %
54 %
54% of all images on Clara’s Instagram account
were categorised by clarifai to show a child.
CLARA: IT’S ALL ABOUT THE CHILD

62. child
woman
indoors 22 %
34 %
34 %
34% of all images on Jessi’s Instagram account
were categorised by clarifai to show a child or a
woman.
JESSI: ME, MY LIFE AND MY FAMILY!

63. FIRST QUANTITATIVE RESULTS ANALYSING LIFESTYLE
➤ The more often images the shows „situations of playing“, „family pictures“,
„pictures of children“ or „pictures of toys“ are on the account, the lower is
the minimal value of face protection on this account.
The more child-orientated the represented lifestyle is, the less parents
care about privacy protection on the account.
➤ The more often the account represents images of furniture or interior or
several rooms, the lower is the maximum degree of nudity one the account.
The less child-orientated the represented lifestyle is, the more parents
care about privacy protection on the account.

64. A SURPRISING FINDING
… that needs further research.

65. AS A SOCIOLOGIST, GENDER DISCRIMINATION IS ALWAYS AN ISSUE…
Pearson girl boy
cute coefficient ,375** 0,006
sign. 0,000 0,860
N 757 757
beautiful coefficient ,408** -,140**
sign. 0,000 0,000
N 757 757
pretty coefficient ,287** -,120**
sign. 0,000 0,001
N 757 757
fashion coefficient ,248** -,120**
sign. 0,000 0,001
N 757 757
What is the reason for these discriminating
results?
Is it in the picture or in the algorithm?

66. boy: 99,8%
girl: 98,5%
cute: 0,0%
beautiful: 0,0%
GENDER BIAS IN THE ALGORITHM?
boy: 0%
girl: 99,4%
cute: 94,7%
beautiful: 98,6%

67. FOUR MESSAGES TO
TAKE HOME …
1. Although parents know privacy protection strategies, 50% share
pictures with their children's sensitive visual information.
2. The privacy protection behaviour depends on the demographics as
well as the usage behaviour of the parents.
3. Images that contain a lot of sensitive visual information of children are
more popular among users.
4. If the Instagram account is a representation of a lifestyle that focuses
primarily on children, sensitive visual information about children are
more likely to be shared.

68. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
➤ This work was supported in part by the Ryerson University’s
Social Media Lab Visiting Scholar Program and the Ontario/
Baden-Württemberg Faculty Research Exchange Program.
➤ Special thanks to Oluwatomilayo Adegbite for his help and
support with the automated image analysis.

69. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION!