IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsoctx/v7y2017i3p25-d112122.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

‘It Just Gives Me a Bit of Peace of Mind’: Australian Women’s Use of Digital Media for Pregnancy and Early Motherhood

Author

Listed:
  • Deborah Lupton

    (News & Media Research Centre, Faculty of Arts & Design, University of Canberra, Bruce 2601, Australia)

Abstract

A diverse range of digital devices and software are available to women to seek and share information and personal experiences about pregnancy and parenting. This article reports findings from a focus group study involving Australian women who were pregnant or had very young children. The participants were asked to recount their experiences of using digital media for pregnancy and parenting and what media they would like to see developed that were not yet available. The findings revealed that digital media were very important to the participants. They were using mobile apps, social media, content-sharing platforms and online discussion forums to connect with each other and with family members, post images and other information about their pregnancy and children, track their pregnancy or their children’s behaviours and development, and learn about pregnancy, infants and childcare. Despite their frequent use of and reliance on digital media, few participants had begun to consider the implications of sharing personal information about themselves or their children online or by using apps to record details. The implications of these findings are discussed in relation to the complexities of the intersections between information, emotional support, intimacy, personal data generation, sharing and privacy as they are conducted and experienced on the digital media used by women during these life stages.

Suggested Citation

  • Deborah Lupton, 2017. "‘It Just Gives Me a Bit of Peace of Mind’: Australian Women’s Use of Digital Media for Pregnancy and Early Motherhood," Societies, MDPI, vol. 7(3), pages 1-13, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsoctx:v:7:y:2017:i:3:p:25-:d:112122
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/7/3/25/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/7/3/25/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sophia Alice Johnson, 2014. "“Maternal Devices”, Social Media and the Self-Management of Pregnancy, Mothering and Child Health," Societies, MDPI, vol. 4(2), pages 1-21, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. María Caballero-Galilea & Esther Martínez-Miguel & Juan Carlos Fernández Gonzalo & Ricardo Saiz de la Cuesta Abbad & Margarita Rubio Alonso, 2022. "Digitized Prenatal Newsletter: Impact on Obstetric Patient Satisfaction and Loyalty," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(5), pages 1-15, February.
    2. Mackintosh, Nicola & Gong, Qian (Sarah) & Hadjiconstantinou, Michelle & Verdezoto, Nervo, 2021. "Digital mediation of candidacy in maternity care: Managing boundaries between physiology and pathology," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 285(C).
    3. Natasa Lazarevic & Marie Lecoq & Céline Bœhm & Corinne Caillaud, 2023. "Pregnancy Apps for Self-Monitoring: Scoping Review of the Most Popular Global Apps Available in Australia," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(2), pages 1-17, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Baki Cakici & Pedro Sanches, 2014. "Detecting the Visible: The Discursive Construction of Health Threats in a Syndromic Surveillance System Design," Societies, MDPI, vol. 4(3), pages 1-15, July.
    2. Rosa Scardigno & Carmela Sportelli & Paolo Giovanni Cicirelli & Angelica Lops & Francesca D’Errico, 2024. "Online Mothering: The Empowering Nature of a Hashtag Movement Founded on Social Sharing and Stereotype Deconstruction," Societies, MDPI, vol. 14(5), pages 1-17, May.
    3. Deborah Lupton, 2014. "Apps as Artefacts: Towards a Critical Perspective on Mobile Health and Medical Apps," Societies, MDPI, vol. 4(4), pages 1-17, October.
    4. Smeeta Mishra, 2021. "Looking for Medical Advice in Everyday Digital Spaces: A Qualitative Study of Indians Connecting with Physicians on Facebook," Vikalpa: The Journal for Decision Makers, , vol. 46(2), pages 86-98, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsoctx:v:7:y:2017:i:3:p:25-:d:112122. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.