Hellobee Boards

We are not on social media. When we heard through the grape vine a family member had posted pictures of LO, we asked that they be taken down. Daycare is allowed to use her pictures on print advertising materials but not online. I'm probably a little overboard, but DH agrees. She's our kid--we're allowed. It's our job.

ETA: I don't judge people who operate differently. I don't even give it a second thought. To each their own.

I'm pretty selective about what I post. I don't have FB but will post occasionally on my DH's account. I don't post often. I have an Instagram that is set to private where I post pictures. I try not to post anything her teenage self would be embarrassed by. My sister has a public Instagram and she will post pictures with permission. Same for immediate family and FB. DH is considering getting an Instagram account. His would be public.

I post pics and updates from my son on FB, but mainly because I have a lot of family and out of town friends that use FB to keep up with what is going on with me and my family. I know they enjoy seeing what I post. However, I post a picture maybe once a week. I have friends that literally post pictures of their kids every day! That to me seems like too much. Not just because of privacy reasons, but like someone else mentioned, overposting can be boring. I try to remember that not everyone will find my child as interesting as me, so tons of photos really aren't necessary.

I post pictures on Facebook but I have my account pretty locked down. I don't mind her face being out there but it's in moderation. I have a lot of people on Facebook that want to see her so I enjoy sharing her pictures and antics with them.

@mediagirl: Same. We share pictures on Facebook, but I have my privacy settings pretty strict and I have a group of family and really close friends that see the pictures - not everyone I'm "friends" with on FB. We have a lot of long-distance relatives who haven't even met my kids, so seeing pictures of them on Facebook is one of the few ways they can "see" them. I'm picky about the pictures I post too - I try not to put up anything that would be embarrassing for my kids when they are older.

I post limited pictures on Facebook and Instagram. Nothing is be worried about her being embarrassed over, and only my friends can see, but I'm not overly worried. I limit it more because I don't think most people want to see a million pictures of her every day.

I have a private photo sharing thing that my family and some close friends are on where I post way more. They actually want to see multiple photos of her a day (or they can choose to ignore it if they don't )

I got annoyed when family member were posting without my permission, and especially when they were taking my photos and emailing them around. I closed my original FB after my MIL was tagging herself in my photos of D. I have a new FB and have like 12 friends, am completely private, and still post very limited photos of D. I am pretty liberal with photos on IG because I keep my account private and I pick and choose who I'm friends with (and have blocked all my ILs from being able to find/follow me).

I am definitely very selective about photos that go on facebook. DS is only a month and I only posted one photo when he was born and one photo when he turned one month. My family knows I don't like them posting photos on social media and they are really respectful of that. I don't post many for both privacy and oversharing reasons. Similar to how I hate when people only post selfies is how I feel when people just post random photos of their kids. I never usually mind when the photos are more family/activity related then just oh here's a pic of my kid that looks identical to the one I took yesterday.

I post about once a month on facebook... usually his 'monthly' bday photo and maybe another photo if we did something fun or it's a holiday photo. (His 4th of July outfit this weekend). I LOVE taking photos, so I love to share; Instagram gets 3-5 photos a week, but I also use this for his chatbooks, so if someone doesn't want to see all my baby photos they can unfollow. Same goes for facebook; its my account so I'll post what I want. I actually wish some of my friends would post more photos!

@DesertDreams88: my reasons behind being careful what I post of DS are more to respect his privacy than anything else. I'm not worried that someone's going to kidnap him or something if I post too many pics on Facebook - I'm not sure if others feel that way? But I do think it's scary how children grow up on social media these days. My childhood photos are confined to some dusty albums on my parents bookshelves, but stuff posted on Facebook will be on the internet forever. I dont think these websites will die out any time soon, and I find it weird to think of, for example, my sons future employer being able to dig out pictures of him as a toddler because I didn't have my privacy settings just right. That said, I do post pics and wouldn't judge others who post more often - but it does boggle my mind how this generation of kids will have their whole lives documented online.

DH and I both post on Facebook, and I post on Instagram. The only other people that post pictures of DS are my parents, and I told them they should be tagging us in any pics of him so we're aware of it.

I'm honestly not super concerned about pictures online in general though.

I post a couple times a month on FB or instagram. We've got a lot of family overseas and moved around a lot so it's convenient. It doesn't bother when other people post either.

It would bother me if it was all the time or embarrassing or mean photos / captions but no one has done that.

I take my kids out in public so I see FB like that.

I share pictures regularly on my private IG but I limit the pictures that I post of him on Facebook as much as possible. I don't try to control what other people post though even if it might make me uncomfortable.

I post mostly to IG since that account is newer and it's not like FB where I'm friends with a lot of people I don't even talk to anymore, and a lot of friends of friends. I do post on FB too, I feel okay about it. We have a lot of relatives/friends that love seeing updates!

I don’t post much of LO on social media. I’m most active on Twitter, but I don’t tweet pictures primarily. I don’t put much on Facebook either. In general, I don’t want her on the internet. Regardless of what FB and other SM companies tell you, I don’t think our activity is truly private. Also I don’t trust other people to monitor their privacy settings as well. Once this woman I don’t even know liked something after I tagged my MIL in one of the few pics I post of my LO. I had forgotten that by tagging her it appeared on her timeline. It was weird having someone I didn’t know like a pic of my LO. I do post a few pictures of her from time to time on my blog, but that’s it. Her name is not mentioned on the blog either.

@Maysprout: Facebook is already developing and using powerful facial-recognition algorthims. If you think photos of your kids on the internet won't be DIRECTLY associated with them into their adulthood, you're not thinking very far into the future.

No pictures of her face online as for now. I will probably allow her school and church to do so as she gets older but as long as it's with a group and no solo pictures. I doubt I'll ever share pictures of her face online in the future from my social media accounts and I expect friends/family to do the same. I just don't want her all over the internet, especially since both DH and I are involved in large online communities, we both blog, and our work is in tech.

@turquoisemama: Yep, and that "someday" will probably be within the next 5-10 years.

@namaste: I work in tech, too - I think it's interesting that some of the most conservative parents I know (regarding social media) work in tech.

@Maysprout: Privacy settings are an illusion. There is nothing stopping anyone from saving or screencapping your posts and putting them wherever they'd like. There's no real conspiracy, I just think kids deserve to be in control of what's associated with their online identity.

@Foodnerd81: Would you mind sharing what the other application is that you use? I'd be interested in giving it a shot with our family.