UK Mums and Dads are Creating Digital Lives for newborns
· One in eight new parents create a Facebook page or Twitter handle for their new born baby.
· One in 10 Brits rank taking photos of their newborn the most important thing to do after the birth, above weighing the baby.
· One in five new parents who take photos at the birth admit sharing these snaps online within 15 minutes, says new research from Currys & PC World.
The digital world has well and truly taken over, as not even the first picture of a new born baby is sacred anymore, with more and more UK parents opting to create their new arrival a social profile on sites like Twitter and Facebook.
One in eight new parents will set up a Twitter or Facebook profile for their new baby with four per cent even claiming to do so prior to the birth, to ensure the digital future of their unborn child is secured.
As our survey found, pictures are being taken and shared just minutes after parents have held their baby for the first time and it’s heart-warming that technology allows family and friends to share...
The survey results, by Currys & PC World, are announced as Britain continues to experience an unprecedented baby boom – a 50 per cent rise in births in the UK has been documented since 2001.
2013 is also the year in which the world’s most anticipated birth will take place: the Royal offspring of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will surely be the most digitally documented baby of our time.
And the lives of newborns around the UK are being transformed via digital technology, as results show that one in 10 new parents rank taking photos of their new arrival as one of the first things they do following the birth, above weighing the baby.
Nearly 70 per cent of UK parents take photos of their baby on the day of its birth with one in two sharing these images through social media channels within 24 hours of the little one’s arrival. While, one in five excited new parents waste no time at all, sharing pictures within the first 15 minutes.
It’s no surprise then that whether via images posted on Facebook and Twitter or simply through email, 65 per cent of UK adults will ‘meet’ the newborn of a family member or friend digitally, before meeting them in person.
Ben Lovett, spokesperson for Currys & PC World, said: “Advanced technologies have made photography, particularly via cameras, more accessible and more connected, allowing new parents to capture and share their special moments more easily.
“As our survey found, pictures are being taken and shared just minutes after parents have held their baby for the first time and it’s heart-warming that technology allows family and friends to share in these precious moments even if they can’t be there in person.”
Parents today are taking advantage of amazing new technologies such as using WiFi to send photos or video straight from the camera, over the internet, to other devices and social networks in order to document the birth in record time.
However, this technology wasn’t always so readily available: nearly half of older parents (over 60s) confessed that they felt they had missed out, and wished more technology had been available when their children were young, to capture them growing up.
Furthermore, nearly two thirds of parents aged over 60 also admitted that they wished they owned more photos and videos of their children growing up.