BIT PhD student, Kira Gedris, received a certificate for Most Compelling Presentation at the CCI (Commonwealth Cyber Initiative) Southwest Virginia’s Graduate Student Summit where she shared her research on embracing the risk of sharing about children online and the dangerous influence of narcissism.

Gedris’s presentation titled, “Embracing the risks of sharing about children online: narcissism's dangerous influence on sharenting”, highlighted her research which examines how people who post on social media consider the benefits and risks of sharing information about others in the context of sharenting—the practice of a parent or guardian sharing information about a child online.

Gedris and her co-researchers conducted a survey with current sharenters to understand how their parental identity and level of overt narcissism impact their decisions related to privacy and sharing information with others about their children despite the known risks.

They found that strong identification as a parent and the presence of narcissistic traits increases a parent's affect toward sharenting and that narcissism increases a parent's belief that they can manage their privacy online.

Gedris’s presentation was based on research from a working paper she worked on with Drs. France Bélanger (Accounting and Information Systems Department at Pamplin College of Business), Obi Ogbanufe (University of North Texas), and L.C. Schaupp (West Virginia University).