Social Media and the need to assume the worst


With our big event coming up, I have had to stop and remind myself to “mention” to family and friends that when baby is born, we will announce it on social media when we are ready, with the pictures we chose and with the information we want to share.

Bringing back up my February baby group, 3 mothers had their news shared by family members before they even had a chance to personally tell all of the people they wanted too. They were heart broken, the intimacy and privacy of these special moments are basically blown up by the NEED to share information that isn’t even theirs to share.

I read an article awhile back about once the baby is born, the firsts that you get to do… who do you tell first, and sadly now, it isn’t a decision that many people get to make because of the fast moving high speed explosion that happens through a text, a post and a tag.

More and more when you speak with people around you, they have all found out something really important via social media instead of a personal message… ie. engagements, births, deaths and other big news that really shouldn’t be advertised before the VIP’s find out. This is pretty concerning to me as to just how untouched and plugged in we have all become. Yes it is easier to post a simple picture and announcement out of excitement for all 600 of your closest friends to see only to find out that Grandma or Uncle X found out about your big news through a tag and someone else’s post.

This article by Maria Guido is just one of the many you can find about ruining your friends big news. And another article where honestly, the new Mom had to spend the time, just after baby’s birth to apologize to friends and family for them finding out about baby via social media and a friends tag and post.

In another article Chances are your baby will be on facebook within an hour of being born, “When questioned on who specifically uploaded these images, only 62 per cent of parents acknowledged they did it themselves, with other family members (22 per cent) and friends (16 per cent) responsible for posting the remaining images. The most popular outlets for displaying these images were Facebook (77 per cent), Instagram (48 per cent) and Flickr (32 per cent).”

We have done our best to keep baby’s name a secret just more so to the fact that everything is so public now, that nothing seems to be sacred.

This post is becoming a rambling mess, but I think you get the gist of it. So, sometime between now and the next 10 days, we will make the announcement of this little man’s arrival when we are ready.

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