ProTechThem: Digital Harms of Sharenting. Survey and Interview Data, UK and Italy, 2022-2024

This data collection brings together four complementary datasets on parents’ practices and perceptions of sharing information about their children online (“sharenting”), combining nationally weighted surveys with in-depth qualitative interviews in the UK and Italy. The motivation is to provide a robust, comparative evidence base on how and why parents post (or avoid posting) content about children on social media and online platforms, how they assess and manage privacy and risk, and what harms or negative experiences they and their families may encounter. By integrating large-scale survey data with interview narratives, the collection supports both population-level description and detailed exploration of decision-making, norms, and lived experience across two national contexts.

Two survey datasets capture patterns of posting behaviour, platform use, motivations, privacy settings and protective strategies, perceptions of risk and concern, exposure to safety information, and experiences of online harms. The UK survey includes responses from 1,013 parents recruited via the YouGov panel and weighted to be representative of UK adults with children under 18; the Italian survey includes 506 parents recruited via the YouGov Italian panel and weighted to be representative of Italian adults with children under 18. Both surveys are provided as SPSS files with accompanying variable lists and the full questionnaires (including routing/logic), enabling replication and cross-national comparison.

The qualitative component comprises 30 semi-structured interviews with UK parents (collected February 2023-January 2024) and 22 interviews with Italian participants. The Italian interviews include two strands: interviews with moderators/administrators of parenting-focused Facebook groups (and one parent user) conducted in mid-2022, and interviews with Italian parents conducted December 2023-February 2024 using a revised guide to mirror the UK parent interviews. Across countries, interviews explore sharenting practices, attitudes to privacy and risk, strategies for controlling audiences and information flows, experiences of harm, and how norms are shaped within families and online communities. All transcripts are anonymised, and the Italian materials include both original-language transcripts and English translations, alongside documentation on recruitment, consent, and topic guides. Together, these four datasets enable comparative research on digital parenting practices, perceived and experienced risks to children, and the role of platforms and online communities in shaping what is shared about children and how parents attempt to keep them safe.