Insights about Parenting from Social Media and Other Online Platforms

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

Parenting is a challenging endeavor, and because children do not come with instructions, parents have always looked to other fellow parents for advice, whether it be by asking a neighbor, calling a relative, or reading a parenting book. With the advent of the internet and social media, parents now have access to millions of other parents as well as untold websites that provide information or advice. This symposium includes three papers that provide insights about parenting from different online sources. Paper 1 examines the language that surrounds over a million posts on Twitter that mention good mothering or good fathering, finding that parents who post about good mothering are more likely to do so in a self-critical way than posts about good fathering. Paper 2 considers terms that parents use to learn about parental discipline online through a Google search, finding that parents with positive attitudes about spanking are more likely to choose search terms that yield websites that justify spanking and that lack empirically based information. Paper 3 uses over 11,000 posts on Reddit to uncover how foster parents’ concerns have changed from before to during the COVID-19 pandemic. Foster parents became more concerned about having the financial resources to meet the needs of foster children during the pandemic and about the potential for children’s behavior problems to be exacerbated by stay-at-home orders. These papers illustrate that online resources both influence the share of information about parenting but also serve as helpful ways for researchers to gain insights about parents.

Sub Unit

• Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Chair

• Elizabeth T. Gershoff, University of Texas at Austin

Individual Presentations

• “Sharenting” on Social Media: Praise versus Criticism of Mothers and Fathers Online - Presenting Author: Rebecca Ryan, Georgetown University; Non-Presenting Author: Pamela Davis-Kean, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor; Non-Presenting Author: Lisa Singh, Georgetown University; Non-Presenting Author: Samantha Steimle, Georgetown University; Non-Presenting Author: Nicholas Waters, Michigan State University

• Parents’ Search Term Selection and the Likelihood of Obtaining Evidence-Based Information about Spanking - Presenting Author: Justin Kyle Scott, University of Maryland, Baltimore; Non-Presenting Author: Elizabeth T. Gershoff, University of Texas at Austin

• Most Pressing Concerns of Foster Families During COVID-19 - Presenting Author: Joyce Yea-Eun Lee, Ohio State University; Non-Presenting Author: Olivia Dae Chang, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor; Non-Presenting Author: Tawfiq Ammari, University of Michigan