Babies and Technology
This commercial made me cry.
And then moments later, I checked my Facebook and had received a friend request from a recently born baby girl. Her parents set up an account for her so that distance friends and family could keep up with what she’s up to. I thought it was an awesome idea, since the parents would be posting info to the baby’s Facebook page instead of their own, but at the same time, it made me wonder how much is a good idea to put *out there* before the child has a say in it. Or when they’re finally old enough to use Facebook, having their entire life already on their profile, which mom and dad wrote out for them.
I’ve been thinking a lot about babies/kids and technology lately. We already decided that our baby won’t become the focus of the blog –it works for many people, but I don’t feel comfortable posting a lot of pictures of someone without their permission or knowledge of what’s going on- so we’ll most likely only post occasional pictures of her. Instead, I’ll be using events and adventures to inspire topics on the family page, as I have this entire time. As far as other aspects of social media go, it’s a challenging line to walk.
As weird as it is to see status updates from kids that obviously can’t type or read yet, it also bums me out to read updates from friends that are entirely about their babies or children. Yes, children become a HUGE part of your life, and everyone wants to hear the deets on the day they were born, first word, first time they slept through the night, pictures of the baby, etc., but the contents of their diaper for the day? Notsomuch.
So here’s what I’m thinking may work:
-Wait until she can actually use Facebook to allow her to set up an account – and apply the super-lockdown privacy settings
-Post occasional updates on our own personal Facebook pages, while trying not to go overboard [I can see how this would be difficult]
What do you think about babies/kids and social media? Set up their own accounts, or leave it to the parents until they’re old enough? What do you think the line is between informing the family of milestones and information overload?
Of course, different things work best for different families but I’d love to hear what you think.
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Ah! Silly hormones. Now I am crying too. That was beyond adorable.
Great topic…I really don’t think that Facebook will still be relevant by the time that your daughter is old enough to care about it (it’s gotta go the way of MySpace, Friendster, AOL eventually), so I’m not sure that it’s the best way to preserve memories, BUT – it’s good you’re thinking about how to handle the social media question now, because chances are in the next couple of years things will be even more open & online. I can’t even begin to comprehend how social media will continue to evolve!
I like the idea of a separate page for baby photos, though it doesn’t have to be facebook. It could be an album on Picassa or something like that. That way, the people who like you but are not THAT interested in the baby can bypass it, but those that can’t get enough (relatives, esp. grandparents, esp. family/friends living far) can go to the page. A friend of mine did something like that way before the days of facebook and I enjoyed going to their website and checking out the latest photos. For awhile they would post about two dozen photos per month and arrange the photos by month “1 Month Old” “2 months Old” etc, but after about age 3 they would just post photos based on occasions or interesting candids. I was definitely a fan- it was neat seeing an old and dear friend’s child grow up even though they lived 3500 miles away!
I have a 13 yr old that rolls his eyes everytime someone mentions Facebook…that is because he is not allowed to have an acct.
However, for my 5 month old baby… yes, I post pictures and milestones on Facebook. I *try* not to have it all about the baby but it is pretty difficult because they require more of your attention than any other person in your life including older siblings. What I did for her though is create a share site through Shutterfly. It is completely about her (AND I was curious and did a search of her full name the other day and nothing came up AT ALL) and everything that she does, her pictures, etc. I really love the way the site is designed (probably much like a blog) because I added a folder of picutres for each week and now that she is 5 months old we will start adding by months. There is also a Journal where I can just jot down what is the latest. Also, you can upload videos (which I love because sometimes pictures don’t do justice). It is also neat that you can send out a weekly email to your “members” of the site if new content has been added, but it will only do it once a week not every time you add something. This way, people can get as much or as little of their fill of what is happening as they desire and they can order any of the photos right off of Shutterfly. It has worked REALLY well for us.
I think that setting up a separate profile for the baby is going a bit overboard. More often than not, the page will not be updated enough anyhow. Its a great idea to just do a separate site (like said above, Picasa or another photo dump site), and give the link to your family and friends if they want to go to it. You could even post it on your Facebook and blog if you would like for people to have access to it, but not to repurpose your already awesome blog 🙂
I love that video! After I found out I was pregnant I wanted to do something similar. I agree that the Facebook thing doesn’t seem very (age) appropriate, but I know our world relies so heavily on technology that it’s hard to ignore it. I set up a blog for my baby. It’s private so only Dad and I can post to it. I’ve been writing letters to him/her and plan to post pictures and other memorable moments as they occur. I figure when they’re old enough (or, God forbid, something happens to us) they’ll have this to read back upon and can try to understand how wonderful and loved he/she is. 🙂