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Sharenting, Twelve Years Later — The Day Photos Posted at Birth Come Back to the Child Who Was in Them

By Leon MoriguchiPublished May 15, 2026Updated May 18, 20265 min read日本語版あり
Audience
Parents who have shared their child's photos on social media and are now starting to wonder, as the child grows older, whether that was the right call

TL;DR

  • ·Research on the first generation of shareanted children finds that many teens see their parents' posts as embarrassing or pointless, and that even those who trust their parents consistently want to be asked before something is posted
  • ·Already at ages 9–13, children and parents disagree over whether permission is needed, and sensitivity to one's own online image grows as adolescence approaches
  • ·Past posts cannot be undone, but a joint review at age 10–12 — deciding together what stays, what comes down — is a realistic way to convert old content into a conversation rather than a grievance

Contents

  1. Lead
  2. What Sharenting Was
  3. Testimony from the First Generation
  4. The Gap Between What Parents Intended and What Children Experienced
  5. What Can Be Done After the Fact
  6. Closing
  7. References

Lead

Children born in the early 2010s, when Facebook and Instagram were becoming mainstream, are now approaching adolescence. They are the first generation of children whose lives were documented on social media from birth — what some researchers have started calling "the first generation of shareanted children."

Research on how these young people experience their parents' posts has been accumulating only recently. What it shows is not easy reading for parents who have been posting.

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In the memori app

The memori app has no screen-time controls. What it offers is somewhere without ads to keep your family's photos and records.

  • No ads. Your photos and records are never sold to anyone.
  • Unlimited photos and videos, with a separate album per child.
  • Private groups for sharing photos beyond the household (creating one needs Partner Ultra or above; joining one you're invited to is free on any plan).
More about memori →
← PreviousKeep It or Delete It? — A Child's Right to Be Forgotten and the Reconstruction of Autobiographical MemoryNext →Extracurricular Records as a Portfolio — Designing Visible Growth Through the School Years

Related

  • The Moment the Phone Turns Around — When a Child Becomes a Maker of Records
  • A Child's Digital Footprint — Designing for "Preserving" and "Protecting" at the Same Time
  • Sharenting — Children's Privacy and the Digital Footprint They Didn't Choose