The less you care, the more you share.

This appears to hold true for some parents who tend to practise “sharenting”, according to the latest joint research conducted by Kaspersky and Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT). The survey found that parents in Asia Pacific and Egypt who are less motivated to protect themselves online are more likely to share their lives frequently on social media

Sharenting, a blend of “sharing” and “parenting,” refers to the habitual use of social media by parents to share news, photos, videos, and detailed information about their children.

Titled “Small Shares, Big Risks: How Parents Assess Threats and Cope with Sharing of Children’s Data”, the study found that the parents’ frequency of posting photos and videos increases concurrently with their declining motivation to practice online safety.

“Our analysis combined regression, correlation and comparison of means to examine the relationship between parents’ sharing behaviours and their attitudes towards digital safety. Across these methods, we observed a consistent pattern showing that as the frequency of ‘sharenting’ increases, motivation to adopt protective measures declines. This suggests a behavioural gap, where greater online exposure of children is not matched by stronger efforts to safeguard their data and privacy.” Associate Professor Jiow Hee Jhee, Deputy Director, Teaching and Learning Academy at the Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT).

The findings are based on 152 online responses from Egypt, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, and Vietnam.

Convenience versus security: a constant tug of war

When it comes to taking steps needed to protect their digital footprint, the research found that parents from APAC and Egypt are generally aware of the need to secure their children’s and families’ privacy online, but the actions required to do so appear to be quite troublesome.

A large majority (87%) agree that limiting social media visibility to family and close friends reduces privacy risks; however, nearly half (49%) find the process time-consuming. Some four in every five respondents (80%) also believe that removing sharing permissions protects privacy, but 40% say it requires effort. In addition, more than 8 in 10 (83%) believe that turning off metadata and geotagging protects their privacy, but more than a third (36%) think it is too time-consuming to do so.

“Humans are hardwired to prioritise convenience and immediate rewards, largely because of our innate instinct to survive. This explains why we have little patience for delayed gratification. In the digital world, this means we default to app settings because changing them requires effort. In our research, some of the parents we surveyed find changing the privacy settings of their social media or removing location tagging on apps quite cumbersome. Parents acknowledge that digital security is important, but the trouble to implement it creates constant friction. Since parents believe in their capacity to practice safe sharenting despite the time and effort required, cybersecurity education efforts should demonstrate that safety practices are easy to carry out to help reduce their perceived friction,” commented Trishia Octaviano, Senior Manager, Cybersecurity Education for Asia Pacific at Kaspersky.

Modern digital parents: confident yet aware of their vulnerability

When asked about their confidence to deal with privacy risks that come with “sharenting”, more than four in every five parents believe that they have the capacity to keep identifiable information off their posts and accounts, not post embarrassing photos of their children, and to set the privacy settings on social media to limit views to family and close friends.

However, close to three-quarters of parents (72%) think that, despite adjusting their social media privacy settings, they are still vulnerable to hackers.

Underscoring the confidence of parents to adopt mindful sharenting practices, Kaspersky experts present a quick checklist of how to manage digital privacy for your family’s safety:

Delete old accounts that you no longer use.

        Set your accounts to private if you do not intend for your profile to be public.

Take time to navigate the privacy settings on your social media accounts, and check them regularly, as they tend to change. Review your network of contacts, past activities, and profile visibility.

Before disclosing any information online, think about whether it could be used against you.

Be mindful about disclosing geolocation in posts and remove metadata from photo files. (For a detailed instruction on how to do, read this article on Kaspersky blogsite: How to remove metadata from photos, videos, and other files, and why do it at all | Kaspersky official blog

Consider taking down posts that expose your child’s frequent and significant locations, e.g.  school, sports club.

Actively monitor your child’s online activities.

Use tools such as Kaspersky Safe Kids that also comes with Kaspersky Premium. This app makes parental controls easy including tracking whereabouts and device habits, restrict content, balance screen time, and more in an all-in-one app.

 “Parents who share more about their children online often become more comfortable with digital platforms, which can lower their perception of risk and reduce motivation to practise digital safety measures,” said Associate Professor Jiow. “Ultimately, how parents think about sharenting shapes how they safeguard their children’s digital privacy, highlighting the importance of educating parents on the risks of sharenting.”