About
Sharenting is “the habitual use of social media to share news, images, etc of one’s children” according to Collins English Dictionary. The word is a blend of over-sharing and parenting.
Origin
On May 18th, 2012, the Wall Street Journal writer Erin McKean coined the term in a “Words of the Week” article saying, “I call it “oversharenting”: the tendency for parents to share a lot of information and photos of their kids online.” Oversharenting was shortened to sharenting over time.
Spread
On May 17th, 2015, CBS New York uploaded the first video about sharenting to YouTube (shown below). They report that most people think that parents share too much about their child on social media. The reporters warn people about sharing the childs location through pictures.
On Sept. 16, 2016, USA Today reported, “An 18-year-old woman from Carinthia is suing her parents over their posting of 500 images of her without her consent, The Local Austria reports. The images were shared with her parents’ 700 Facebook friends. Her father told the news outlet he has rights to the photos because he took them.” On Jun 23rd, 2017, TheEllenShow uploaded a monologue of American Comedian Ellen Degeneres who concentrated on children suing their parents over Facebook photos (shown below, left). The video gained 247,000 views and 3,800 likes in two years. On July 20th, Good Morning Britain uploaded a heated debate on the sharenting subject to YouTube which received 163,000 views and 767 likes in two years (shown below, right).
The term became popular with parents, with some proudly calling themselves sharents (shown below).
Many News Outlets have reported on the dangers of sharenting including The Guardian, Good Housekeeping, The BBC and the Atlantic. They list reasons like digital kidnapping (when someone uses the photo of someone else’s child), endangerment and future embarrassment.