Feminine Knowledge in the Digital Age

The Impact of Social Media on Student Perspectives on Pregnancy and Childbirth

Abstract

Members of Generation Z are bombarded daily with new innovations in technology within a rapidly globalizing world, leading to a constant shift in modes of connectivity and communication. The new wave of social media, especially TikTok and Instagram, arrives in parallel to increasing social awareness of previously taboo topics, like the focus of this research—pregnancy and childbirth. Women’s health issues, especially including the topics of menstruation, sex, pregnancy, and childbirth, were hardly spoken about publicly less than a decade ago. However, this is changing, and there is a growing number of women influencers using internet platforms to normalize conversations surrounding women’s health. Using an interview-based methodology, this research seeks to gather a better understanding of opinions on social media as an avenue for women’s health knowledge, and to answer questions about how the sharing of women’s health content on social media affects young women along with what this content reveals about the societal understanding of pregnancy and childbirth. This article primarily includes opinions and commentary from young female students at the University of Florida, in addition to some supplemental viewpoints from women’s healthcare providers. These diverse perspectives produce a more multifaceted understanding of how social media can be so impactful and therefore why it is able to shape perceptions of a condition such as pregnancy.

.