Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #574 Under the Influence: Insta-Mum Culture With Eloise Germic

Transcript

#574 Under the Influence: Insta-Mum Culture With Eloise Germic · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

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