A Cyber Celebration: The start of a life in social media

Baby Bryce

The call came at 3:51 a.m. on January 19.  After nine months of anticipation, my nephew Bryce was ready to join the world.  As my parents and I awaited his arrival at the hospital, our friends and extended family were finding out from Facebook that the baby was on his way.  Minutes after his birth, I changed my status to announce that I was an aunt and uploaded a picture to my wall.  Relatives in Michigan, New York and Washington D.C. instantaneously responded with “Likes” and messages of congratulations.  But they weren’t the only ones.  Friends of friends, former co-workers and people I only know online also commented on the exciting news.  It was a celebration that could only have taken place online.

My first picture as "Auntie Ashley"

Forget a formal announcement or an exhausting list of phone calls, when you have big news to share, social media is the fastest and easiest way to do it.  According to the book Groundswell, this technology thrives because people have an “eternal desire to connect.”  What better reason to connect than the joy of a new baby?

With more than 800 million users, Facebook is one of the biggest names in social media.  It’s the site I use the most, but definitely not the only one.  Throughout my sister’s pregnancy, I regularly checked out her profile on thebump.com.  The social networking site helps expectant mothers share their experiences with each other and provides unlimited resources to answer all their pregnancy questions.  But anyone can log on and track the baby’s growth or find out where mommy and daddy are registered.

Social media websites are also helpful in choosing a baby name.  My sister and brother-in-law had very specific requirements:  it couldn’t end in “n” because that wouldn’t work with their last name, they didn’t want something too popular or too weird and they wanted a possible nickname.  When we came across Bryce on BabyNames.com (I say “we” because my whole family was involved in the process), it showed us its ranking among U.S. Births and a rating by members.

 A good name, but not too popular!

We turned to Yahoo! Answers when no one could think of a middle name.   In response to the question “What’s a good middle name for Bryce?” we found an older post where nearly 30 people had made suggestions.  My brother-in-law came up with Avery, which like many of the answers started with an “A” and had two syllables.

Would you let strangers help name your baby?

Now that Bryce is here, we’ve continued sharing special moments of his life on social media.  His first photo shoot - hundreds of pictures taken by a family friend - are posted on shutterfly.com.  My brother-in-law prefers to tweet some adorable candids using the Instagram app on his iphone.

With so much information about Bryce already available online, it’s hard to believe he’s only two weeks old.  I wonder how much will be out there when he’s my age?  And who will be able to see it?  Will baby pictures show up when a future employer searches for his name?  In some sense, his entire life will be captured by social media.  Is that a good thing?  A bad thing?