Understanding and Supporting Fathers and Fatherhood on Social Media Sites

Abstract

Fathers are taking on more childcare and household responsibilities than they used to and many non-profit and government organizations have pushed for changes in policies to support fathers. Despite this effort, little research has explored how fathers go online related to their roles as fathers. Drawing on an interview study with 37 fathers, we find that they use social media to document and archive fatherhood, learn how to be a father, and access social support. They also go online to support diverse family needs, such as single fathers' use of Reddit instead of Facebook, fathers raised by single mothers' search for role models online, and stay-at-home fathers' use of father blogs. However, fathers are constrained by privacy concerns and perceptions of judgment relating to sharing content online about their children. Drawing on theories of fatherhood, we present theoretical and design ideas for designing online spaces to better support fathers and fatherhood. We conclude with a call for a research agenda to support fathers online.

Parenting and Digital Media: From the Early Web to Contemporary Digital Society

“…A small number of studies have addressed the topic of blogs written by fathers. Their findings echo research about fathers' use of online forums: particularly relating to the use of humour for online communication, the limited amount of fathering advice available and a rejection of stereotypes (Ammari and Schoenebeck ; Åsenhed et al ; Johansson and Hammarén ). These studies have particularly focused on young and first‐time fathers' identity formation and search for support from others in similar situations.…”

“…Parenting websites and discussion forums have attracted attention from scholars working in gender studies. Some researchers argue that the forums reinforce traditional parenting stereotypes and unequal gender roles (Ammari and Schoenebeck ; Brady and Guerin ; Madge and O'Connor ; Rashley ) and tend to promote individual consumer‐based solutions rather than addressing issues relating to the gendered division of parenting (Gambles ; Jensen ; Worthington ). However, other researchers have identified a growing feminist voice on some parenting website forums (Pedersen and Smithson ).…”

Internet Ecologies of New Mothers: Trust, Variety and Strategies for Managing Diverse Information Sources

“…While previous studies have looked in depth at particular slices of the web (e.g., social networks [1], [6], [9], [14], [17], parents of special needs children [27], medically focused fact finding [1] or fathers' use of social media for parenting [2]), the goal of our study is to explore the search habits of new mothers across a variety of resource types. We posit that many tasks' requirements do not fit within the confines of a particular resource, leading mothers to combine information from a collection of sources.…”

“…Being in a unique situation (one could argue that new motherhood only happens once, if ever), new mothers traditionally rely heavily on other women's previous experiences, both for seeking new domain knowledge and connecting with others who share their experiences. Social media propose an opportunity for supporting exactly these issues and a few studies have already addressed issues around new parenthood in relation to social media use, for example in relation to anonymity for new moms in social media [27], and the support of fatherhood on social networks [2]. Considering new parenthood to be a life event, social media sites have long been described as providing social and emotional support for users, such as people with specific interests or ailments [12,13], as well as identifying and handling periods of life transition [6], [16], for example transition to university [1], [24], and divorce [28].…”

“…As with other previous research on parenthood [5], [9], [13], [12], [17], [27], we studied mothers because they experience unique physical demands around giving birth, social expectations of being the primary caretaker, and identity pressures around working or staying-at-home. Fathers also experience unique demands, which have been a specific focus in social media research [2], yet this is not the focus of this paper. Our aims were to describe the online resource ecology that new mothers utilize, consider the factors or characteristics determining which sites are used, and discuss how new mothers navigate often unreliable online content for important information.…”