In the bleary,  no-sleep nights following the birth of my son, I spent an unholy amount of time looking at my phone. Too tired to read, too addled to

Instagram Keeps Showing Me Children’s Tragedies

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2022-07-05 17:30:02

In the bleary, no-sleep nights following the birth of my son, I spent an unholy amount of time looking at my phone. Too tired to read, too addled to even handle a podcast, I distracted myself with TikToks, tweets, and Instagram posts. Social media pushed all things baby, from ads for “de-choking” gadgets to tips on how to introduce your dog to your infant. Most new parents who go online see a flood of baby content; at this point, it is creepy but unremarkable. My digital footprint made it especially easy for the algorithms to nudge me onto the Mommy Internet, since I compulsively Googled pregnancy questions (“can baby kick hole through placenta”) and lurked on way too many parenting forums. Joining the Mommy Internet felt, for the most part, soothing. A step in the right direction, like dutifully swallowing a prenatal vitamin.

But something on my screen has continually surprised and rattled me in this first year of parenthood. During quiet nap times spent scrolling my feeds, I’ve found myself transfixed by posts about babies and children who are ill, dying, or dead. As I watch recipe breakdowns and home-makeovers on TikTok, videos from mothers grieving the untimely deaths of their children pop up, impossible to flick away. My Instagram Explore page often suggests accounts focused on or memorializing babies with severe health challenges and birth defects. My husband has walked in on me looking at my phone and crying about children I don’t know so many times that he’s (gently, reasonably) suggested a social media hiatus.

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