When Parenting Meets the Scroll

In Israel right now, many parents are living with their phones in their hands.

They are checking for alerts. Reading updates. Messaging family. Looking for reassurance. Looking for information. Looking, at times, for proof that everyone else is somehow coping better.

In moments like these, social media becomes more than a platform. It becomes a lifeline, a witness, a place to exhale, a place to be seen. For parents, it can also become a place to share children’s lives more often, more quickly, and sometimes more publicly than they otherwise might.

A new study by Dr. Tali Gazit, published in March 2026, examines the psychological forces behind “sharenting,” the now-familiar practice of parents posting photos, videos, and stories about their children on social media. The findings offer a striking window into digital parenting in Israel, where family life, collective stress, community belonging, and constant online connection are deeply intertwined.

And at a time of war, the study feels especially relevant.

Why parents share and why it matters

Sharenting is often discussed in moral or legal terms. Is it safe? Is it fair to the child? Does it leave behind a digital footprint the child never consented to?

Those questions matter. But this study asks something deeper and, in many ways, more human: what is happening inside the parent?

Some parents share because they want support. Some want to document family life. Some want to feel less alone. Some may not even realize how strongly they are being pulled by the emotional currents of the digital world around them.

Drawing on responses from 299 parents in Israel, the study examined three psychological factors that may shape sharenting styles: Fear of Missing Out, or FoMO; Joy of Missing Out, or JoMO; and social comparison.

Together, these variables help explain why some parents slip into oversharing, while others are more deliberate and restrained in what they post.

The psychology behind the post

The study found that parental oversharing is closely linked to FoMO, the feeling that others are having better, fuller, more meaningful experiences than we are. In parenting spaces online, that feeling can become especially intense.

One parent sees another family baking challah in matching outfits. Another sees smiling children doing crafts during a missile alert. Another sees a mother who seems calm, productive, emotionally available, and somehow beautifully dressed while holding everything together.

Even when we know these are curated moments, they can still shape how we feel about our own lives.

The strongest relationship in the study was between FoMO and social comparison. In other words, the more parents compared themselves to other parents online, the more likely they were to feel they were falling behind. That emotional pressure, in turn, was associated with more oversharing.

This matters in ordinary times. In wartime, it may matter even more.

When reality feels unstable, people often reach for visibility, connection, and affirmation. Posting can become a way of saying: we are here, we are okay, this is how we are surviving. But the same digital space that offers comfort can also intensify the pressure to perform resilience, warmth, creativity, or family closeness at precisely the moment when many parents are simply trying to get through the day.

War changes the emotional meaning of social media

The study was not about wartime parenting specifically, but its findings speak powerfully to the Israeli present.

During war, parents are often carrying multiple roles at once: protector, regulator, comforter, information filter, teacher, and emotional anchor. Many are doing all this while managing their own fear, disrupted routines, sleep deprivation, and the constant hum of national uncertainty.

In that environment, social media can quietly become another emotional arena.

A parent may post a sweet photo from home because it offers a moment of beauty in the middle of chaos. Another may post because everyone else seems to be posting. Another may share because they are desperate for connection. Another may not share at all, but still scroll and compare, wondering why other homes look calmer than their own.

This is where the study becomes so important. It suggests that sharenting is not only about digital habits. It is also about the psychological experience of connection and disconnection. About belonging. About regulation. About identity. About the powerful, often invisible role of comparison.

That insight can help us look at parents more compassionately. Not as careless users of technology, but as human beings trying to find steadiness in an emotionally saturated digital world.

What JoMO can teach Israeli families right now

One of the most intriguing concepts in the study is JoMO, the Joy of Missing Out.

Unlike FoMO, which is driven by anxiety and vigilance, JoMO reflects the capacity to feel good about stepping back. It is the ability to put the phone down, miss the stream of updates, and experience that not as loss, but as relief.

The study found that JoMO was associated with less parental oversharing. It also found that parents who do not use their phones on weekends reported significantly higher levels of JoMO. In Israel, this included both Sabbath-observant parents and parents who consciously disconnect in order to protect family time.

That finding feels especially meaningful right now.

Because in Israel, disconnection is not always avoidance. Sometimes it is a deeply grounded act. A way of returning to the room. To the table. To the child in front of you. To the body. To the moment that is actually happening, instead of the thousand moments unfolding on a screen.

For families living through war, that kind of intentional pause may be more than healthy. It may be stabilizing.

It does not require full digital withdrawal. It may be as simple as deciding that for one meal, one evening, one Shabbat, or one hour after the siren ends, the phone is not the center of family life.

Controlled sharing is driven by something else

One of the study’s most interesting findings is that FoMO, JoMO, and social comparison did not significantly predict controlled sharenting.

That matters because it tells us that thoughtful sharing is not simply the opposite of oversharing.

Parents who share carefully may not just be less anxious or less comparison-driven. They may be acting מתוך a different set of inner resources altogether: reflection, values, judgment, ethical awareness, or a strong sense of boundaries.

That distinction is important for educators, clinicians, and anyone working with families.

If we want to help parents post more thoughtfully, it may not be enough to warn them about privacy or digital footprints. It may also be necessary to address the emotional climate surrounding social media use: the comparison, the loneliness, the need for validation, the exhaustion, and the longing to feel seen.

A more compassionate conversation about digital parenting

Too often, conversations about sharenting collapse into accusation. Parents are framed as irresponsible, attention-seeking, or naive.

This study offers a more nuanced picture.

Yes, children’s privacy matters. Yes, digital footprints matter. Yes, AI and image manipulation make these questions even more urgent than before.

But parents matter too.

Their emotional worlds matter. Their loneliness matters. Their stress matters. Their need for connection matters. Their longing to belong matters. If we want healthier digital parenting, we need to understand not just what parents post, but what they may be feeling when they post it.

For Israelis parenting through war, that message lands with particular force.

At a time when the line between public and private has grown thinner, when family life is lived under pressure, and when phones can feel both necessary and overwhelming, this research reminds us that digital choices are rarely just technical decisions. They are emotional ones.

What this study adds to the conversation

Dr. Tali Gazit’s study expands the conversation around sharenting by moving beyond the child’s digital footprint and placing the parent at the center of the story.

It shows that parental oversharing is often shaped by a web of emotional and social forces, especially FoMO and social comparison. It suggests that the ability to disconnect, and even to enjoy disconnection, may protect against compulsive sharing. And it offers a particularly Israeli insight into the role of structured digital pause, whether rooted in Shabbat or in a conscious desire for family presence.

In a culture where parenting is already intense, visible, and deeply communal, and in a period when many families are navigating fear and uncertainty, that insight could not be more timely.

Sometimes the most important question is not “Should parents post this?”

It is “What are parents needing when they do?”