A Worldwide Family in the Digital Age: Oversharing (Part 1)

My Family Care asks Laura: Between pictures of babies and what people have had for dinner, Facebook is filled with oversharing. There will always be an amount of your family you want to share with colleagues, but how do you strike the balance between just right and over the top?

The rise of 'life sharing'

My partner and I welcomed our first child into the world just over 5 weeks ago and, previous to his arrival, we discussed how much of our boy to share on social media; a topic which must be discussed between parents more and more these days, with the sharp rise in popularity of 'life sharing' through Facebook, Instagram, Twitter etc.

When is showing off too much?

For my partner, the decision was easy. He felt parading a new-born, or indeed any child, through the various channels was indeed that, a show, showing off to incite as many likes or comments as possible. His views were very strong, even to the point where he felt exposed and vulnerable by people he potentially didn't know very well, or at all, having an insight into his life. "Definitely not", he said, "the people we are in close enough contact with are the ones who will be privy to our private life."

Catering to a worldwide family

My views were more liberal. We had recently moved back from Australia - him being an Aussie and me being a Brit - so had lots of family and friends over the other side of the world, eager and excited for the arrival of the little one.

Many of these we may not speak to on a day-to-day/week-to-week basis, but they'd be just as excited to share our news. Plus, if it was anything like when we got our puppy, I knew how proud I'd feel - wanting to show off our new addition and, yes, excited for the "Ooh doesn't he look like" and "He's definitely got your chin" comments.

Who owns your pictures?

So our debate got me thinking, and I decided to have a look into the facts of sharing photos online through social media. There was a lot of furore in recent years where it was claimed that once photos are shared on Facebook, they become its property, a perception which isn't strictly true. Once photos are shared, Facebook has a - broad - licence to use your work, but there is no copyright transfer and they do not own your photos in any way.

This, however, doesn't stop Joe/Jane Blogs coming across the cute family portrait, or adorable first swimming lesson photo, right-clicking and saving the photo to their hard drive to use as they please. That means, dependant on your security settings, the personal photos you thought you were sharing innocently with those on your approved friends list, could be anywhere and being used in numerous ways.

Striking a balance

So how do we strike the balance between just right, and over the top? You could:

• Vet every post you put up to decide whether you'd be happy if that particular picture ended up on a photo card in China
• Create a private group to which you add only the people the images are intended for in the hope they won't right-click and save image
• Or, our preferred method, use WhatsApp.

WhatsApp encrypt messages sent over their network and they don't store any messages, including photos, on their servers until it is received by the recipient. If the message isn't opened in 30 days, it is automatically deleted. This means only our family and friends are able to see what we send, and we trust them enough not to sell our photos on!

Laura Moss, Travel Consultant, New Mum of One