The public generation – Sharenting childhood on social media

A flurry of newspaper articles highlight albeit in dramatic fashion, an important issue about privacy and children’s digital rights when parents posts photos and details about their childhood on social media. The research report from Alexis Hiniker at the University of Washington and Sarita Schoenebeck at the University of Michigan is illuminating about children’s views.

How to remove your location data before sharing photos

The problem is you can’t rely on social media to automatically remove location data from photos you post online. Currently Facebook automatically strips out the EXIF information (that contains location coordinates) from uploaded photos. They do this for privacy reasons. They also strip out the IPTC information that professional photographers insert (eg on your wedding … Read more

Social Media and Adoptive Family Birth Mother Contact (Video)

How to cope with unexpected birth mother contact Susan Ogden from Adoptions Together describes how her agency developed their response to help adoptive families and birth families navigate their relationships online, and the lessons that she and her agency have learned one family at a time. The presentation was given as part of the 5th Rudd … Read more

My Top 3 Adoption and Fostering Podcasts

Adoption Podcasts There are now over 20 podcasts focused on the topic of child adoption that provide information, education and support to adoptive parents and adoptees. I’ve listened to most of them and here I’ve picked three I found most interesting and useful and which illustrate the range that’s available. What are podcasts? If you’re … Read more

Contexts of Computer-Mediated Communication

In 1992, just after commercial restrictions were lifted on what then became the Internet, and at the dawn of the World Wide Web, I published the book Contexts of Computer-Mediated Communication, which brought together the writings of some of the key researchers in the new field of computer-mediated communication. The book combines theoretical analyses of … Read more