The Impact of Instagram Mommy Blogger Content on the Perceived Self-Efficacy of Mothers

• Published in: Social media + society Vol. 7; no. 3
• Main Authors: Germic, Eloise R., Eckert, Stine, Vultee, Fred
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London, England SAGE Publications 01.07.2021; Sage Publications Ltd; SAGE Publishing
• Subjects: Childrearing practices; Internet; Mass media effects; Mothers; Parents & parenting; Social media; Social networks; Instagram; social comparison; motherhood; social media; mommy blog
• ISSN: 2056-3051; 2056-3051
• DOI: 10.1177/20563051211041649

The prominence of social media in contemporary life has led more mothers to search for parenting information through various Internet and social media channels. The following study examines the impact that Instagram mommy blog content has on the perceived parenting skill of the typical American mother. In this experiment, participants were exposed to one of two types of Instagram motherhood blogger content. The first type of content did not address the struggles of motherhood (referred to as an “alpha-mom” blogger content), while the second type of content (referred to as a “realistic” blogger content) did. After reviewing the content, participants will be asked a series of Likert-type scale questions to gauge their perceived parenting skill. We hypothesized that participants who were exposed to the “alpha-mom” content would have a lower belief in their own parenting skill than those who were exposed to content from the “realistic” blogger. The hypothesis was not supported. However, we did find that participants who received some of their parenting information from Internet sources had a lower belief in their parenting skill than participants who did not receive their parenting information from online sources, regardless of the content to which they were exposed.