January often brings new resolutions but this year, I’m replacing resolutions with intentions. One is to spend less time scrolling on my phone and more time reading a good book. Another is to be more mindful of the content I consume – and post – on social media.

As we enter 2026, it is estimated that 95% of the Irish population own a smartphone. Up to 70% of the population have a Facebook account, about 60% have TikTok, just over 51% are on Instagram and 33% have an account on X, formerly known as Twitter.

These platforms have brought us entertainment and connection, but we now know that they also come with data risks that few of us considered when we first starting posting about our favourite agricultural summer show or holidays in Portugal.

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Before Christmas, the Data Protection Commission released an advert highlighting the risks associated with social media, showing a little girl, Éabha (8), being recognised by strangers in a shopping centre from images on her parents’ social media posts. It became a talking point for the Irish Country Living team, and on page 12, Rosalind Skillen has a three-page special on ‘sharenting’ – the concept of parents sharing images and information about their children online.

The timing is very apt as earlier this week, the country’s media watchdog Coimisiún na Meán raised concerns with the European Commission about the AI tool Grok, which is allowing users to alter photos – in some cases making them sexually explicit. To give more background, Twitter became X when Elon Musk took it over, and working away in the background is Grok, its AI integrated system. Its capabilities are frightening, allowing users to request that a picture be edited, changing how a person appears and even removing their clothes. This image can then be re-posted online, and it is women and children who are mostly targeted.

Earlier this week, the country’s media watchdog Coimisiún na Meán raised concerns with the European Commission about the AI tool Grok, which is allowing users to alter photos – in some cases making them sexually explicit

The sharing of non-consensual images is illegal but it is very difficult to police, especially as international companies operate in different jurisdictions.

You might think these are pretty extreme cases but what really struck me is an interview with a mother in our article on sharenting. She explains that she was on an old social media account looking for a picture taken of her child a few years ago. When analysing her most popular posts, she found that a picture of her son in his swimming trunks on a beach had been downloaded 8,000 times, and she didn’t know who had gotten their hands on it.

I have been that mother, so many of us have been, taking a picture of our grinning child looking cute and happy covered in sand, innocently posting it online, only thinking of friends and family that are going to comment on how adorable they look. We think the journey of the post stops there, but does it?

The reality is that picture can travel much further than we expect, potentially exposing our children to predators, identity theft, cyberbullying and embarrassment.

This isn’t about placing blame on parents’ shoulders – God knows, mom guilt is very real. Instead, it is to inform our readers.

I have posted plenty of pictures of my children online and I’ve written about them in this column but it certainly has made me more mindful of my posting habits in 2026, and where that information may end up.