Examining parental sharing behavior on Instagram - An experimental study measuring the effect of emotions and colors on the sharing behavior of Dutch parents towards their children between the ages of 6 and 12

Along with the transition from the static stage of Web 1.0 to the interactive Web 2.0 stage, children become increasingly represented in the online environment. However, as the minimum age to use social media is still 13, children below the age of 13 are highly dependent on their parents when it comes to their access to social media content. Existing literature claims that colors and emotions have always affected human sharing behavior prior to the age of social media: indeed, positive emotions and colored images tend to be shared more often. This study aimed to examine whether these findings hold for parental sharing behavior on Instagram as well, with the objective to find out in which ways children below the age of 13 could be reached best on the online platform. The main research question of this study was ‘To what extent do emotions and colors on Instagram affect the sharing behavior of parents towards their children between the ages of 6 and 12?’ To answer this research question, a quantitative study with an online experiment was conducted using a 2 (positive vs. negative emotions) by 2 (colored vs. black and white images) between-subjects design. The survey was completed by 211 participants (N = 211), who were equally divided over the four experimental groups. Surprisingly and in stark contrast with existing literature, findings showed that emotions and colors did not have a significant effect on both online and offline parental sharing behavior. Additionally, an interaction effect between positive emotions and black and white Instagram images was found, as well as an interaction effect between negative emotions and colored Instagram images. The contradicting results could be caused by the fact that this study had an extremely specific target group, namely Dutch parents with children between the ages of 6 and 12, whereas existing studies used a broad target group and were conducted with a more global mindset. It can thus be concluded that when it comes to Dutch parents with children between the ages of 6 and 12, emotions and color use do not affect the sharing behavior of Instagram content towards their children.