Why do you put photos of your children on Facebook?

 

The social media habit of some of my friends that I find most offputting is the frequent appearance of photos of their children.

 

Aside from their questionable taste, I believe these people are doing their kids a great diservice. They are making decisions that will affect their children’s future identity and privacy in ways we can barely guess at.
 How much do you trust Facebook with your data, your images, and what it knows about you and your friends?

Even if you’re “not doing anything wrong”, even if you are willing to trade your own privacy for the convenience of easily sharing links and vacation photos, why would any caring parent want to make those decisions for their children, choosing the riskier option?
 

As someone born in the 1970s, my childhood remains private, recorded only on paper diaries written by me, and on printed photographs stored on my parents’ bookshelves, mostly undigitized. My teenage peccadillos and the sins of my students days are mercifully unrecorded. My digital trail starts in the 1990s, when I was already a working adult, old enough to take responsibility for all my actions and deeds.
 

It’s not possible to live like we used to.

Unless your home is an isolated hut in the Sahara desert without an Internet connection, you can’t grow up that way anymore.

 If you interact with any people at all or attend any social event, someone will take photos and those images will be saved, emailed, or uploaded to Facebook, leaving a digital trail that perhaps only a global nuclear war could remove.

That trail may cause your child no harm.

But it may one day lead unscrupulous advertisers, the NSA, the Chinese secret police, the local school bully or a perverted stalker straight to your child.
 

Maximizing your child’s exposure to such risks is not responsible parenting.