Collaborative Research: SaTC: CORE: Small: Promoting Responsible Sharing of Children’s Information by Parents

Parents sharing information about their children online is commonplace in the United States and comes with several benefits such as showing affection toward children, documenting cherished moments, and maintaining social connections. However, typically well-intentioned parents can also expose children to known risks such as identity theft, bullying, misuse of photos, or threats from child predators. Despite these risks, many parents continue to think of sharing their child's information as being similar to sharing more general posts on social media. Across various parenting styles, parents may need to be informed about these risks if we are to protect children against them. Towards the broader goal of improving the welfare of children and protecting them against current and future cyber threats, this project is focused on a scientific method for designing educational materials to foster more responsible, and less risky, parental sharing of children’s information online. Students and the public will be participating in this research. The objective of this project is to establish a more comprehensive understanding of parental sharing in the context of diverse family interaction styles and provide empirically validated educational materials that support informed parental sharing and young children’s privacy. In doing so, the proposed work is investigating privacy education interventions that are preventative, can be easily disseminated, and impact broader social norms. This proposal focuses on parents and their preteen children. At this age, children display increased autonomy as they approach the minimum allowable age for most social media use. At the same time, they are susceptible to influence from their parents and have typically not established the agency to prevent unwanted parental sharing. The overarching objective will be addressed via a three-phased plan to: 1) Demonstrate how family interaction styles contribute to parental sharing practices and outcomes; 2) Identify strategies to inform safe and responsible parental sharing based on insights drawn from parents and their children; and 3) Empirically-validate educational interventions to inform safer parental sharing standards. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.