Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #745 Filtering Through the Insta-Mum Culture

Transcript

#745 Filtering Through the Insta-Mum Culture · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families Podcast. It's the podcast for the
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: time poor parent who just answers.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: Now, good day. It's doctor Justin Coulson. Welcome to another
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: episode of the Happy Families Podcast.
• 0:14
  Speaker 3: Today a guest who has written an article.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: I've done some research and this thing has gone bonkers
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: global media around a piece of research looking.
• 0:26
  Speaker 3: At the influence of the insta mums.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: The article by Eloise Jermik, who is a PhD student
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: at the University of Illinois in Chicago, is titled the
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: Impact of Instagram mummy blogger content on the perceived self
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: efficacy of Mothers, and Eloise, who researches new media, social
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: media and the impact on us and the world, joins me.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: Now really nice to be able to spend some time
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: with you all the way from Chicago. Thanks for being
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: on the podcast, Eloise.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: My pleasure.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: Let's just sort of break down what this study was about.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: And I want to do this because we're all on
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: Instagram and the way we interact with it affects the
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: way we feel about ourselves in the world. So this
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: study the impact of Instagram mummy blog of content on
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: perceived self efficacy of mums. Can we just we know
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: what Instagram mummy blog of content is loosely enough, but
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: what do you mean by perceived self efficacy of mums?
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: So, as you said, we all sort of exist today
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: online in a variety of different ways. When I first
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: started this project, I really wanted to just look at
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: how the content we view online impacts how we feel
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: about ourselves. So it started as sort of like a
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: look into self esteem, but I really wanted to narrow
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: it down and look specifically at motherhood and see how
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: content posted online by motherhood bloggers impacts how regular every
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: day parents feel about the work that they're doing, because
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: obviously we already know that that social media has a
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: massive impact on things like body and stuff like that.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: So that was really where I started, is wanting to
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: understand how parenting based content specifically on Instagram, because I
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: felt that Instagram is the most sort of platform that
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: tends to gloss over things the most and make everything
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: seem sort of picture perfect.
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: It's the most superficial, right, That's what you're saying, Yeah,
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: you don't have a bad die on Instagram. You can
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: have a bad dy on Snapchat, but you don't have
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: a bad day on Instagram exactly.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: The nature of Instagram is one that encourages content creators
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: to really put forward that picture perfect face. So yeah,
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: I wanted to look at how that iterated itself in
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: parenting content and then how that influenced parents at the
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: end of the day.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: Okay, so always you called the insta mummy bloggers alpha moms, right,
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: So alpha mum's meaning.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: I broke it down into either the alpha mom or
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: the more realistic mom, And the alpha mom is something
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: that we think of. It's probably the first thing that
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: comes to your mind when you think of mommy blogger's
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: a mother, a parent who again always puts that best
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: face forward. It always seems to be excelling in their
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: parenthood as well as in their career. They never really
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: show that side of the of the struggle of motherhood,
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: the grittier stuff. You know, the pictures are always edited,
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: they're matching with the little kids and everybody's a one big,
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: happy family. The other side that I looked at was
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: the more realistic side of mobbi blogging and of parenthood,
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: and that was one that was, you know, grittier, less
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: edited photos and really sharing struggles with with parenthood, be
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: that postpartum depression, be that just exhaustion, anything that that
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: might come along with being a parent. So what I
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: did was just showed content to my participants either from
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: the alpha mom subset or from the more realistic subset,
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: and then had participants respond to a set of questions
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: based on gauging how they felt about how they were
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: doing as a parent. So some question is like, oh,
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: I feel like I'm able to adequately provide for my child,
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: or I feel like I was made to be a parent,
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: or something like that. And interestingly enough, there wasn't a
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: market difference in between the two two started respondents, so
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: the perceived self advocacy wasn't any different from people who
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: saw the alpha maum content as people who start the
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: realistic contact.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: When I hear about research like this, it reminds me
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: of the paradigm that's used in a lot of body
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: image research. So for decades now, usually women have been
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: asked to have a look at images in a magazine
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: or online and then rate how they feel about their
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: own body based on what they've seen. And usually when
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: you're seeing imagery that's in a magazine or online of
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: other women, it ends up making the viewer feel less secure,
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: less satisfied within themselves and probably have less self efficacy
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: or less of a belief that they can actually ever
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: look the way that they have always dreamed of looking.
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: Would be a reasonable assumption that mums who looked at
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: the images that you showed them experienced the same thing
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: that the Instagram mummy blog is. Whether they're being Alpha
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: mums or being totally realistic and saying, hey, I get it,
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: lives hot and my wife's a hot mess, would it
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: be fair to say that mums that were viewing this
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: content still experienced a reduction in self efficacy.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: That was my initial assumption going in, is that looking
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: at specifically the alpha mom content would make parents feel
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: worse about how they were doing as parents or about
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: their quote unquote parenting skill. But that wasn't the case.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: I again, I expected that that was my hypothesis, but
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: I think that maybe it wasn't really the case because
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: it could be something as small as you know, like
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: sample size or things that happen in social scientific research.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: But I'm hopeful that, you know, maybe it says something
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: about the way we're talking about motherhood in the media,
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: and just like as a larger society that we're becoming
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: more accepting different different types of motherhood, different types of bodies.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: And I think that goes along with sort of larger
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: feminist movement and sort of Barty positivity movement in that
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: perhaps we are becoming more accepting of our own not flaws,
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: but maybe shortcomings is the right word.
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I love this. So the hypothesis was quote not supported.
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: Close quote after the break, After the break, We're going
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: to find out what you did discover in this study,
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: because it does impact on every mom, every parent who's
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: spending their time on social media trying to find parenting content.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the Happy Families podcast,
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: the podcast for the time poor parent who just wants
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: answers now. Eloise Jermik is a PhD student at the
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: University of Illinois, Chicago. She researches in new media, social
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: media and the impact that it has on us and
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: the world. And a conversation about an article that was
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: published in the journal Social Media and Society, and we've
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: just discovered that the hypothesis was not supported. Looking at
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: alpha mums and looking at realistic mums on Instagram doesn't
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: necessarily make you feel worse about how effective you can
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: be as a mum. So Elois, now that all of
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: the previous assumptions have been blown out of the water,
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: what did you actually discover? Why is this relevant for
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: every parent who's listening right now.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So, in addition to expose it showing the content
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: to my participants, I also asked them a set of
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: questions just about parenthood in general. Where they get their
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: parenting information. And obviously one of the main sources of
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: parenting information that people found was was online. And ultimately,
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: what my research showed was that people who cited online
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: resources as their number one their main source of parenting information,
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: had lower levels of self perceived self affocacy in regards
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: to their parent hed. That was an unexpected interesting thing
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: that I found.
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: So what we're what we're really saying here is stop
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: listening to people like doctor Justin Coulson, don't look for me,
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: don't look for my stuff online. You're really just trying
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: to put me out of business, aren't you. You're saying
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: don't look for this. But there's something really curious about
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: this to me, and I'd love to discuss the implications
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: of it with you. If a parent is jumping online
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: to find all of the information that they need to
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: parent better. Why do you think their self efficacy is lower?
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: Is it because they've they've got perhaps fewer supports that
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: they can rely on, or maybe they've got a lot
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: of support in their environment, but they just don't want
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: that kind of support. Like they've got parents who are saying,
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: you just got you've got a parent harder. You've got
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: to just want those kids more. You've got to whack them,
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: and they're saying, no, no, no, that's not what I want
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: to do. But because they're struggling with the kids, they're
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: out of desperation searching for people.
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: Like me online. Where do you go with that? What
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: does it really mean in a practical way?
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think the findings sort of speak
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: to the larger media inundated society that we exist in,
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: and it speaks to the importance of of of media literacy.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: So you know, it happens all the time, all of
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: a sudden, For example, you have a tickle in your
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: throat and you go on web nd and you decide
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: that you have throat cancer. I think that sort of
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: jump in in logic is one that is maybe seen
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: in the online parent space. So I think that when
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: searching for information online, any type of information, but especially
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: parenting information, it's important to do the simple things that
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: that we do in in other types of research. Check
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: who's writing this article? Is it coming from, you know,
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: a verified sport, somebody, somebody with a degree in an
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: inn a relevant field, which is exactly what you're doing.
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: I'm feeling feeling the littlest pressure out.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: Okay, but you know, just things like that, checking dates
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: of when things were posted, and making sure that the
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: sources you're choosing to engage with are ones that are
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: viable and reflect your values, because when you go on
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: the internet, at the end of the day, you can
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: really find anything, so understanding what is valuable is really
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: important when we're interacting with any type of information online.
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: I really appreciate the way that you frame that as well,
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: because just as you were saying that, you highlighted the
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: importance of checking the date, how old's the material? I
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: shudder when I see some of the things that I
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: wrote even half a dozen years ago about the online world,
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: based on the research that we had then. I was
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: saying the very best that we knew in terms of
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: the guidance that I was offering to parents. But the
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: research in that area has shifted markedly in the last
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: half dozen years. In fact, even in the last twenty
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: four months, particularly with COVID, and the advice that we
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: give now about screens and social media in the way
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: that we interact on those platforms has really shit. There
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: are still some fundamentals that remain, but I would not
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: say today what I said a handful of years ago.
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: So just hearing you say.
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: That, making sure that it's current, making sure that it's credible,
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: good advice to how we should move forward in a
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: I think you said.
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: A media inundated world.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: Are there any other insights that you've had as you've
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: researched the mummy blogger world? Was there anything that you
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: just think parents need to be careful of, be advised against,
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: or seek out so that they can do better for
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: their families.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it really at the end of the
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: day sort of harpns back to that media literacy that
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: I was talking about, not only in terms of doing
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: research online, checking your sources, checking dates, all of that,
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: but when you're engaging with social media, do all those
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: things that likely as a parent you're telling good children
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: your kids do when they're on social media, remember that
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: at the end of the day, for most people's social
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: media is just a highlight reel, looking at what other
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: parents are doing, what other parents look like, how they
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: how they interact with their children that might be entirely
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: different than what's actually going on. And really just using
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: those those sort of grounding questions of A, I guess
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: it's not really a questioned, but A, I know that
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: what I'm seeing right now is a highlight reel. B.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: I know that I'm a different person and I'm in
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: a different family than every single other person on social media,
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: and and really just remembering that as you you look
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: forward and continue to interact with your social media, because
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: it's it's ridiculous to assume that that we're not going
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: to interact with social media, but just keeping those two
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: those two points in mind, and then maybe putting your
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: phone down when you start to see yourself slipping into
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: that that nature of comparison. I think that's a really
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: good way to stay grounded and still sort of engage
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: with online parenting blogs, social media pages.
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: Whatever, basic but essential reminders. Eloise Jermik, PhD, Student at
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: University of Illinois Chicago. We will link to that study
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: in our show notes for people who want to see more.
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: Thanks so much for joining me on the Happy Family Podcast.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, of course, my pleasure.
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: The Happy Famili's podcast is produced by Justin Ruhlan from
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our executive producer and for
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: more information, you can check the show notes or visit
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: Happy families dot com dot au and make your family
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: happier