Currently submitted to: Interactive Journal of Medical Research
Date Submitted: Nov 18, 2025
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Hazards of Online Advice for Parents of Young Children: A Scoping Review
ABSTRACT
Background:
The parents of young children increasingly use websites, social media and apps to seek parenting and child wellbeing advice. While these online sources can have some benefits, concerns have grown about information overload, misinformation, social-comparison pressures, and uneven access.
Objective:
The objective of this review was to map the evidence on the hazards associated with parents’ exposure to online parenting advice for children aged 0-4 years
Methods:
We conducted a scoping review following PRISMA extension for scoping reviews (PRISMA-ScR). We searched PubMed using a pre-specified strategy and screened grey literature (OpenGrey, ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global, EThOS, UK policy sites) plus parenting forums and major social media platforms. A narrative synthesis was performed.
Results:
Across qualitative studies, surveys, experimental and mixed-methods studies from multiple regions, three recurring themes emerged: (1) information overload and inconsistency of advice: a) parents feel overwhelmed and often bewildered; b) the sheer volume of information leads to an unacceptable time burden; c) the confusion engendered is associated with reduced confidence in their abilities as parents and lower self-esteem; (2) not knowing whom to trust trying to navigate which sources had credibility and were based on sound evidence provoked anxiety and uncertainty, with suspicions of some sources promoting misinformation, exacerbated by opaque commercial sponsorship and sometimes low quality information; (3) feelings of inadequacy, anxiety, and depressive symptoms due to comparing themselves with the influencers they watched. Additional themes included privacy concerns and commercialisation of children; equity barriers of access to online information (language, connectivity, digital skills, competing demands) that may widen social disparities.
Conclusions:
The current online ecosystem often confuses parents, damages their self-confidence and belief in their parenting abilities, and may exacerbate inequities. Co-produced, evidence-based, trustworthy sources of online parenting advice would help parents find out the best way to bring up their children and maximise their potential. It would benefit from clear demonstration of the authority of the information, and an explicit statement that there is no sponsorship of commercial products. To maximise engagement, it should have culturally and linguistically tailored content, and useful links to good quality local community services. Such a trusted source of online parenting advice should then be repeatedly improved in light of parent feedback, followed by evaluation of how it promotes parent-child interaction and child development.
Citation
