Part 1: The impact of social media on parenting.

Is it helpful or harmful?

Image source.

Our generation of parents has never been more under the influence. Whether we like it or not, social media adds its two cents to almost everything in our lives. Pause too long on on a feeding tutorial then all of a sudden you’re drowning in a river of virtual breastmilk. Like a cute wooden toy and soon you’ll be considering the benefits of a Montessori school. All the gentle parenting accounts will have you buying their courses for $200USD and bending over backwards to understand the deep reasoning behind why your child is refusing to get dressed. Have you ever googled infant sleep? Me too. And yes I bought the program. We’ve all been there, in the hazy, milk-stained, sleep-deprived world of the fourth trimester, and we’ve all felt on the verge, alone and vulnerable enough to be convinced we’re doing a terrible job. Which is perfect for the mum-sphere. That’s how they make their money. Selling courses and products that are marketed as miracles – have you seen the sleep patch ad? Apparently, all I needed to do to get my son to sleep is put a sticker dosed in essential oils on his Batman pyjamas and he’d be out like a light for 8-10 hours. Sounds ridiculous but if I had seen these ads two years ago I probably would have purchased 10 boxes out of sheer desperation and hope (though false) that this may work, even for a night.

We’ve lived through the purgatory that was the COVID-19 lockdowns and the vaccination debate. A topic that will forever divide parents. In fact, divide the modern world. We were hearing “do your own research” more than ever, and more often than not the type of research that was linked were a string of bogus medical journals designed to look like the real thing. The trust we had in our real life medical professionals such as our General Practitioners; the people we regularly go-to for everyday advice on our health and the health of our children as well as routine vaccinations, was now deemed as untrustworthy. They hadn’t done anything wrong but they also hadn’t marketed themselves. They hadn’t gained a bevy of loyal followers – that was their only demise. We were now taking the word of influencers and non-accredited experts over the advice of doctors and medical evidence. We all began to think we could not only read but understand medical jargon and 500 pages of medical research, and if we didn’t take the time to do our own research, we were doing a disservice to our kids. Blend conspiracy theories, the algorithm, no regulations for misinformation with new motherhood and social media can turn into a pretty dangerous place.

On the flip side, there is a lot of good that comes from social media. For instance, on Instagram during the pandemic I started a series of interviews with mothers on how they were living, working, and staying sane. No talk of vaccines or advice but a look into how others were surviving. This type of honest connection felt so vital at the time. We’d lost the freedom to do anything apart from a walk around the block, and parents, mothers in particular, suffered and are still suffering the effects of this. I also found some really great medical experts that give logical advice, small businesses that do good things, memes that make me laugh until I wet myself and I’ve formed friendships with mothers I feel so close to yet will probably never meet IRL. There is a light side that allows us to connect and cope without even leaving our homes.

To chat further about the pros and cons that social media has on parenting, I spoke with midwife, lecturer and mother of two, Rachelle Chee, who recently published a study on the impact of social media influencers on pregnancy, birth, and early parenting experiences, a study that is the basis for more in-depth studies needed to uncover such a large and complicated topic. Read on as we chat about our own experiences with social media, why it can be both helpful and harmful, what makes new parents so susceptible to comparison online, and how to safe-guard ourselves (somewhat) when we’re feeling most vulnerable.

JF: I came across your study on the impact of social media has on parenting and I thought finally we’re delving into this in Australia. My son is three years old, when he was around six months, we went into lockdown, so I feel the influence of social media really amplified during this time and some days the noise was really overwhelming. I wanted to firstly ask how this study came about?

RC: My background is that I am a midwife of 13 years, and an educator of five years, and I'm a mum as well. So I have an eight year old daughter and a five year old daughter. It's interesting. In terms of how the study came about, my colleagues and I were just really noticing more and more of a presence, that is something that has come about as a result of the lockdowns because I do know that there was definitely a significant increase in social media, and just internet communication methods in general during COVID-19. So that could have just amplified our observations of that kind of behaviour becoming more popular and more common. But, you know, it was quite a new thing to me to actually think about how the impact is for new parents, because at the time of COVID, and even now, I'm still the parent of reasonably young children. As a midwife, that wasn't the kind of information that I went out and sought. I didn't go out and seek parenting or feeding information. And particularly with regards to pregnancy and birth, because it's something that I had adequate knowledge on.

But, as a result of asking this question, I have obviously started to engage a lot more in, in that sort of content. Months ago I was not a TikTok user, and I am now for the sake of research, but honestly, many other things. So it was just that, that observation that we started to make, which is in line with peoples’ increasing usage and utilisation of these kind of technologies. And it's just grown from there.

JF: I think of this as the progression from Encyclopaedias to then Google and now we go to Instagram or social media to seek information. I wonder, if you were getting more and more patients who were second guessing medical advice? There was a lot of “do your own research”, rather than finding an expert, as in a medical expert that you trust and seek appropriate advice for your situation. And this went for not just COVID-19 but across the spectrum of health related topics from physical to mental health to birth and pregnancy. Were you finding in general that people are putting more trust in social influencers than real life doctors, and do you think doctors with a social influence hold more power?

RC: Honestly, that is such a good question! So, without revealing too much, we've recently finished a new study, which really explores this amongst pregnant women and early parents. It's not published yet, but it is finished. And this is one of the discussion points in the research, which was about the reliability of that research. People are seeking out doctors on social media, for example, thinking that their information is more reliable. And that is different and has definitely been one of the findings along with the information that people obtain on social media that is brought to them by people with a health care qualification seems to be perceived as being more trustworthy. So certainly, the usage of social media to deliver educational messages, and that by health professionals, is arguably a good thing.

One of the points that we make in our research is that maybe people are seeking out this kind of information from others in general. So other parents, people experiencing similar events in life. Parents, other people who are pregnant, but also doctors, midwives, nurses, child health workers, they might be doing that because their ability to actually access the information from those people in real life is hindered in some way. People are faced with barriers, including unit cost. So if you're seeing an obstetrician, you're gonna have to pay, if you are going to a hospital to see a midwife, you have that rising cost of fuel, you've got to pay for parking, there's the time cost as well. So really accessing what you might perceive as being the same or similar information on social media is actually a lot easier.

So, it’s a good thing from a reliable source?

RC: Or that is how it seems that people perceive it to be. That the information is coming from a reliable source. Which is certainly not without danger, having information delivered to you from a health professional on social media. The information and the education that's provided to people by social media is not without bias. The information that a health professional chooses to deliver is going to have some inherent bias. We're all human beings after-all.

JF: One could argue that this can also occur even if we go to see a particular doctor in person.

RC: Exactly. And, you know, that's not necessarily deliberate. There’s not necessarily any deliberate intent to mislead or convince someone that way but people are going to feel the way they feel and act the way they act and speak the way they speak due to many factors including their education, their prior experience and so forth. There are those same inherent risks that you face in real life as well as on social media. People definitely still have to have their wits about them and forming those judgments about the information that they're accessing on social media because it’s not immune to being packaged up with cherry-picked information.

JF: Tell me, what did your study find in terms of how much we trust non-experts with huge followings in comparison to experts or those our close friends and family in real life.

RC: The interesting thing is the parasocial relationships. Which are one sided relationships where the influencer who on a personal level, engages with their followers and their behaviours that mimic real life. Relationships, so they might like people's comments or reply to people's comments directly or they might do these little screenshots of someone's comment, and then they write a TikTok in response, to mimic real life interactions. And there is evidence that those, relationships are still truly one sided and relationships, where the consumer of that content, is the person who is perceiving the relationship, and the creator of the content is not really; they’re just mimicking a real life relationship. There is certainly evidence that, in general, not necessarily with reference to parents and pregnant people that in these parasocial relationships, that those people who are providing the content may have as much influence over the consumers behaviour or decision-making as people in their real lives. So, regardless of whether those influencers online have a healthcare background they do still have that perceived relatability and that perceived relationship, which enables people to see them as relatable – especially if they're experiencing something that is really common to what the consumer is experiencing. They see them more like a friend.

JF: This is so interesting and I can absolutely see how easily this happens especially if you live quite an isolated life. Which a lot of people don’t live close to family, work from home, their partners work long hours etc. so there’s still very much a loneliness epidemic.

RC: And something that people said is that they appreciate very much that the influencers who show what they perceive to be realistic, for example, children having tantrums, really messy house, no time to drink your coffee, do your hair etc. their content can actually be really influential because people appreciate that they feel like they have something in common with them, and they understand what they're going through. That's something that you don't see health professionals necessarily posting about. So I guess the degree of credibility is there for both, but it just exists in different ways.

JF: I find this so fascinating on so many levels because I go through such a love hate relationship with social media and there are influencers who I don’t know at all yet I feel they are a friend of mine. I’m not a social media expert but the way the algorithm works along with with the parasocial side of things, makes it hard to decide whats real or not. If you are going through something, you've probably Googled it, or searched for relatable content, and all of a sudden, you're being fed the same profiles and videos that are talking about the same issues. It has a way to keep finding you to really cement a message – the good and the not so good.

RC: The confirmation bias in these algorithms is strong. I think that's also something that people really need to be aware of is that the algorithms feeds you things that it knows you have an interest in and so it can also have this ability to influence your perception of what's really happening in the world and what the truth is when in fact, it's not it's just feeding you more of something that thinks that you're interested in.

JF: Absolutely. I went through some desperate times with my son and he had reflux and was like a terrible, terrible sleeper. And so you know, you go through those rough patches when you're not sleeping and you're looking to connect or find an answer, an excuse or a miracle. And that's when you can come across some information that may or may not be true, or someone's experience, or someone is selling something and then the algorithm keeps serving it to you.

RC: Yes, and certainly, as a mother myself, I can say when you're desperate, when you're absolutely desperate, sometimes it doesn't matter how obscure the information is, if there's a chance that that's what's happening with you, and that's what's going to help you. It means something to you.

I remember my first child was terrible sleeper, always unsettled, wouldn't be put down. And I was constantly looking for answers. This was eight years ago so the influencer thing wasn't so big. And the social media thing wasn't quite what it is today. But I would Google any chance I got to try and figure out what on earth was wrong with my baby and what I could do. And I went down a rabbit hole, where at any point in time, my baby had, would have had every single possible thing wrong with them in my mind.

JF: And this is the thing. You are someone who is a trained medical professional but when you were in your most vulnerable time, all logic went out the window so what hope is there for the rest of us?

RC: Absolutely. There was a point at which I became convinced that my daughter had a cow's milk protein allergy, because of something I'd Googled, and it wasn't anything else. And it sounded good. So I went in through all my frozen breast milk out. And as it turned out she didn’t have an allergy! But you're right. It's such a vulnerable time. And when it's that challenging, you're really, really susceptible to going down that rabbit hole.

JF: And you don't think that it will happen to you. I know myself that I am a realist and I think I’m quite logical but then again, when you're desperate, you're sooo desperate for answers and reprieve.

RC: We're not immune to it, we're really not. A common perception that people have, I had it, and I still do have it to be honest, is that I have the ability to discern logic; logical reasoning from illogical behaviours and reasoning, but add a little or a lot of sleep deprivation, and lack of self-care and it becomes a challenge.

JF: Do you think social media has had a huge impact on new mothers in particular because we find ourselves in a state of overwhelm and exhaustion?

RC: We talked about how that ease of access is really good for people, because they can access a lot of information and support. I think you also have to consider the social comparison aspect and that is it’s really normal in life, for us to compare how we're doing in general, to others, in terms of finances, the things you own, the things you do, your achievements; that's really normal. But, obviously for new parents, there's that degree of vulnerability that we've discussed for those reasons of sleep deprivation and a major transition in life. When you couple that vulnerability with that ease of access to getting a window into other people's lives, and potentially getting on your phone and just being able to flick through 20 different new parents lives within the space of five minutes, that ability for you to unconsciously compare yourself to how other people is going to have implications. I mean, it could be good, could be bad, it could reaffirm what you're doing and what you've achieved as a new parent, but it could also make you feel like you're not performing to the expected standard and while people might have conscious thoughts saying, “Oh gee, I wish my baby would sleep through the night.” There's also a lot that happens on an unconscious level as well that you are not necessarily aware of, but it has that cumulative effect of impacting how confident you feel in your ability to be that new parent. So the vulnerability [of new parenthood] makes people more susceptible negative experiences, I think. That's something that’s definitely important.

JF: I catch myself doing that. I compare and when I’m not feeling good about myself, comparison truly is a kill joy, then other times I think why do I even care what she is doing? Haha it can really catch you off-guard and depends what stage you're at when you're consuming this particular content. If I read something that would have made me feel like a terrible parent in the early days for not doing something or for doing something, but if I were to read the same article or same post again now I’d just laugh and think that’s such bullshit. But at the time when you're feeling really vulnerable, you absolutely take it all in.

RC: I now try to take a step back and have a look and think about how people perceive the things that I'm watching. I've trained my algorithms to give me this kind of content, because as I said before, I didn't get it because I didn't search for it. I've deliberately trained it so I search for these sorts of things, and when I see them, I let the video play all the way until the end and like it so that they keep, you know, yeah, coming up in my feed.

JF: Other than removing ourselves from social media completely which I think is unrealistic. That’s a great tip – to train or un-train our algorithms by engaging with the accounts that do make you feel good and perhaps unfollowing and not engaging with the rubbish that is simply untrue or that makes us feel worse.

You can read the full study here.