From the graph in Table 1, one can infer that parenting and social media is a relatively emerging research area. The first relevant study was published in 2009. From 2009 to 2014, only 4.4% (15/338) of the papers were published. Conversely, between 2015 and 2022, there was a remarkable surge in the number of publications on parenting and social media. This period encompasses 85.5% (289/338) of the papers analyzed in this study. Moreover, 10.1% (34/338) of the papers were published over the first 5 months of 2023, which indicates that the current general trend of parenting and social media research is rapid growth.

The articles that we examined were published in 232 different journals, which underscores the broad scholarly attention to the topic of parenting and social media. Of the 232 journals, 13 (5.6%) contributed ≥4 articles, accounting for 20.7% (70/338) of all articles (Table 2). The journal with the most publications related to the topic of parenting and social media was JMIR Pediatrics and Parenting, which published 11 articles, followed by the Journal of Medical Internet Research, New Media & Society, Feminist Media Studies, JMIR Research Protocols, Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics, and the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. Upon closer examination of the scholarly domains represented by the journals that have disseminated research on parenting and social media, it became apparent that they encompassed a wide spectrum of academic disciplines as classified by Scopus. These disciplines comprised communication, education, medicine, health science, social science, immunology, and allergy. This emphasized the multifaceted research interest in this subject matter.

Moreover, a total of 1447 different authors made contributions to the development of parenting and social media research. Of the 1447 authors, 1342 (92.74%) published only 1 study on parenting and social media, whereas the remaining 105 (7.26%) published at least 2 papers included in our sample. Scheibling (5 articles) published the most parenting and social media studies in the sample, followed by Cino, Moreno, and Evans, each with 4 publications (Table 3). All other authors in Table 3 published 3 of the studies each. These results indicate that there is no dominant author on the topic of parenting and social media. However, examining the academic collaborations among these authors revealed that many of them share strong academic relationships. For example, Klein and Gonzalez-Hernandez coauthored 4 studies. Buller, Walkosz, Berteletti, Pagoto, Bibeau, Baker, Hillhouse, and Henry worked together on all their published studies. Regarding authors’ affiliations, we found that authors currently affiliated with the University of Toronto, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, University of Wisconsin–Madison, University of Pennsylvania, and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center contributed the most to parenting and social media research.

Next, we conducted a local and global citation analysis to identify the most influential authors (Table 4) and publications (Table 5) in our sample. The local citation times refer to the number of citations within the sample, whereas the global citation times refer to the number of citations in the Scopus database. Hence, the discrepancy between the global and local citation index refers to the impact that a paper or author has in domains other than parenting and social media research. In addition, the authors’ local h-index was explored, which refers to an author’s number of parenting and social media papers (h) that have each been cited at least h times by other parenting and social media studies. This index provides an insight into both the quantity (in terms of the number of studies in the domain) and quality (in terms of the impact on other scholars) of an author’s parenting and social media publications. To measure the impact (in terms of shares, discussions, and likes) of parenting and social media research concerning society, we used the Altmetrics score. This score provides an insight into the number of mentions in online media, such as Facebook, Mendeley, Twitter (subsequently rebranded X), and Wikipedia.

Fiks, Gruver, and Virudachalam obtained the highest number of citations within our sample, indicating that they are the most influential scholars in the parenting and social media domain (Table 4). Among the prolific authors identified in Table 4, they also had the highest local h-index, which denotes their substantial body of high-caliber publications. Noteworthily, we found that most of the prolific authors (eg, Scheibling, Cino, Moreno, Klein, and Gonzalez-Hernandez) were not yet highly cited authors. A likely explanation for this finding is that they have only become devoted to this research topic in recent years, and thus, their publications have had less time to accumulate citations. For instance, Scheibling, the most prolific author among them, published all of his studies in the past 3 years. Furthermore, the high deviation between local and global citations of Sullivan, Bartholomew, Schoppe-Sullivan, Kamp Dush, and Glassman indicates that their publications have been frequently cited not only within the area of parenting and social media but also by papers in other disciplines. In addition, their work garnered a high Altmetrics score, which indicates that their publications are frequently discussed and shared on the web.

Given that the citation frequency is closely related to the study’s publication time, we compiled a list of the 10 most cited studies based on their average local citation count (Table 5). Among them, the most influential publication in our sample was by Jorge et al [40]. Their work revealed how mummy influencers reconcile motherhood and their career by examining the ways in which they portray parenting and family, work-life balance, and the boundaries for privacy and intimacy. In addition, the studies by Moon et al [5], Baker and Yang [41], Archer and Kao [42], Orton-Johnson [43], Haslam et al [44], and Pretorius et al [20] are also recognized as highly influential papers due to their substantial number of local and global citations. These papers cover a wide spectrum of topics, ranging from the impact of social media use on parental expectations and attitudes [46], the motivations to seek out parenting information on social media [44], and the effectiveness of social media peer-group interventions for promoting healthy infant growth [45]. Noteworthily, the study by Bartholomew et al [47] had the highest Altmetrics score, which indicates that it has received great attention on the web.

An analysis of the title, keywords, and abstract fields revealed a total of 1599 title words that occurred 3620 times, a total of 894 keywords that occurred 1610 times, and a total of 5442 abstract words that occurred 42,620 times in our sample. All title words, keywords, and abstract words were then manually screened to group words with similar or identical meanings (eg, “blog” and “blogs”). On the basis of the results of the word segmentation, a keyword analysis and co-word analysis were conducted to identify the most prominent research themes in the area of parenting and social media.

The keyword analysis aimed to assess the frequency of the words and phrases used within the titles, keywords, and abstracts of the research papers. A consistent pattern emerged in the use of specific words (Table 6). In particular, the terms “social,” “media,” and “social media” were found to be the most frequently used words or phrases. This prevalence was primarily attributed to their status as primary search keywords in our study. Similarly, terms referring to social media such as Facebook, YouTube, blogs, Instagram, Twitter, and the internet were also found to appear frequently.

Furthermore, it was evident that words associated with familial relationships, including “mothers,” “parents,” “children,” “child,” and “family,” were frequently used, which aligns with their pivotal roles as stakeholders in the realm of parenting. In addition, terms such as “pregnancy,” “parenting,” “motherhood,” “pediatrics,” “Covid-19,” “vaccine,” and “breastfeeding” were found to appear frequently, which indicates that these topics are the core research concerns in the area of parenting and social media. Moreover, terms such as “support,” “health,” “information,” “health information,” and “social support” indicate the multifaceted purposes for which parents use social media. Finally, the prevalence of terms such as “group” and “intervention” within the abstracts highlights the substantial body of literature focused on interventions through social media.

The co-word analysis aimed to map the co-occurrence of words that appear in different articles. A visualization of the keywords that often appear together was performed using VOSviewer, and it is depicted in Figure 2. Each node represents an independent keyword, and its size is proportional to the frequency with which the keyword appeared in the articles. The lines between the nodes indicate that the 2 connected keywords appear together in papers, and the thickness of the lines represents the frequency of their co-occurrence.

From Figure 2, one can infer that the nodes for “social media,” “Facebook,” “Instagram,” “YouTube,” “Internet,” “parent,” “parenting,” “mother,” “motherhood,” “pregnancy,” and “adolescent” are larger than those of other keywords, which indicates a strong focus on these topics. The analysis further revealed that all keywords could be grouped into 10 clusters (cf the 10 different node colors in Figure 2), which could be further grouped into 4 thematic research topics through a cluster labeling process.

The first research theme covered studies in clusters 3, 4, and 7. The keywords that reflect the theme were “health,” “health communication,” “health promotion,” “self-care,” “social support,” and “peer support.” Consequently, the first theme was inferred to involve research on parents’ motives to seek information on social media and the identification of variables that may predict the occurrence of this behavior. The second research theme covered studies in clusters 2, 8, 9, and 10, all of which were characterized by keywords closely tied to types of parent-related content on social media and text-mining methodologies—namely, “parenting forum,” “mommy blog,” “instamoms,” “feminism,” “neoliberalism,” “qualitative,” “data mining,” “machine learning,” “natural language processing,” and “sentiment analysis.” This research theme centered on the analysis of online parenting content, where the aim was to construct meaningful insights from such data. The third research theme covered studies in clusters 1 and 6, as indicated by keywords such as “mental health,” “postnatal depression,” “risk perception,” “depression,” “anxiety,” “body image,” and “body dissatisfaction.” These keywords suggest that researchers demonstrated interest in the impact of parenting information on social media. Finally, the fourth research theme covered studies in cluster 5, with keywords such as “intervention,” “obesity prevention,” “anti-vaccine,” “HPV,” and “vaccine hesitancy.” This research focused on parenting interventions with the use of social media.

Figure 3 illustrates the thematic evolution analysis that we conducted, offering insights into the progression of the identified themes over time in the realm of parenting and social media research. The analysis revealed notable trends in research focus across different periods. Theme 2, namely, the type of parent-related content on social media, emerged as the initial focal point in 2009 and consistently remained a central area of investigation with the exception of the year 2015. During this period, researchers redirected their attention to understanding the motivations that drive parents to seek information on social media platforms (theme 1). Subsequently, themes 3 and 4 gained prominence, with a growing emphasis on examining the effects of parenting information disseminated through social media channels and evaluating professional interventions.

The area of parenting and social media has received growing academic attention since 2015, aligning with today’s digital turn in information dissemination. In this section, we aim to provide a broader lens for understanding the overall domain of parenting information on social media. Therefore, we discuss the most crucial research gaps that we identified, followed by concrete recommendations for future research to help move our understanding forward of why and how parents consult and are influenced by social media. A summary of recommendations with research questions can be found in Multimedia Appendix 2. These research gaps and recommendations follow the structure of the communication model by Lasswell [96]—communicator, message, medium, audience, and effect—preceded by a brief discussion of the methodologies used in the included studies.

Few studies in our sample (28/338, 8.3%) adopted a mixed methods approach to conduct research on parenting information on social media. However, combining qualitative and quantitative research is highly valuable for addressing complex research problems in social sciences [97,98]. Quantitative data reveal the impact of parenting content, whereas qualitative data illuminate individual experiences. Mixed methods are increasingly used within various disciplines, including health sciences, nursing, sociology, psychology, and education [98]. Future research on parenting and social media should use more mixed methods to obtain a holistic understanding of parental interactions and behaviors on social media.

Within the collected studies, we identified that little to no attention was paid to the sources of parenting content on social media. Crucial to note is that studies that examined the motivations of people to share information on social media were excluded from the sample as they did not align with our objectives. Nevertheless, little to no attention was devoted to answering the question of who is sharing parenting information (eg, everyday parents, medical experts, and parent influencers) on social media and which features characterize these individuals. Hence, numerous questions concerning the source characteristics of individuals sharing parenting information on social media remain unexplored and require further investigation.

Specifically, we noticed that only a fraction of the studies within our sample (13/338, 3.8%) focused on SMIs as sources of parenting information. However, scholars have consistently emphasized that the impact of SMIs on parents and society should not be underestimated [14,99,100]. Specifically, parent influencers provide support and establish a readily accessible and relatable community for parents who want to discuss various parenting topics [100]. Consequently, research has revealed that the content produced by parent influencers exerts a substantial influence on parents in various aspects, including the intention to initiate and sustain breastfeeding and the shaping of parenting ideologies [101-103]. In total, 2 types of momfluencers were distinguished: typical momfluencers who share their personal experiences and professional momfluencers who create content based on their education and professional background [8]. However, research on how parents judge and give meaning to the expertise of information sources on social media is lacking. In addition, while influencer marketing focuses on SMIs’ commercial value, it lacks insights into their role in promoting prosocial behavior [104]. In the context of parent influencers, an important research gap exists in the lack of empirical insights on the effectivity of parent influencers as digital agents for promoting prosocial behavior [105].

Studies related to the “message” construct by Lasswell [96] fell under theme 2 (ie, the “types of parenting-related content on social media”). These studies explored the nature of parenting content disseminated on social media, of which a substantial proportion was medical information. Notably, these studies primarily focused on the health information available on social media while often overlooking the assessment of its reliability. Scholars have raised concerns about disinformation on social media [106]. More specifically, one study has argued that there is an absence of gatekeepers for evaluating the information’s veracity before its dissemination; moreover, peers share available information from both professionals and nonprofessionals at an unpredictable speed and pattern, making it difficult to distinguish reliable information [107]. Other research has similarly indicated that misinformation is frequently shared in parenting contexts [69].

When we examined the available parenting content more closely, we noticed that a variety of parenting topics were investigated, such as pregnancy, child vaccinations, nutrition, and specific diseases. This is also reflected in the fact that the studies examined within this scope were published in 232 journals. However, social media content related to parenting styles remained unexplored. Considering that mothers actively seek online parenting information [5,10], it is crucial to gain insights into the different parenting styles that are shared with peers on social media. Furthermore, little attention was paid to the commercial content targeting parents despite evidence showing their vulnerability in early parenthood [3] and the variety of sponsored content on the web [108].

Notably, and similar to the source cluster, little to no research exists on the type of parenting information shared by SMIs. However, momfluencers are extremely popular among pregnant women and first-time mothers, who regularly consult their profiles [8,14,84]. Given the influential voices of SMIs, it is crucial to study both influencer characteristics and the content they share with their large audiences.

This study identified some research gaps in the social media platforms studied. The co-word analysis highlighted “social media,” “Facebook,” and “YouTube” as prominent nodes, indicating a focus on Facebook groups and YouTube videos [109,110]. Instagram and TikTok are 2 increasingly important social media platforms that are currently overlooked. Instagram is highly popular among brand-new mothers, and the second largest group of Instagram users is aged 25 to 34 years [111]; thus, they represent the age demographic of a considerable number of young parents [8]. Similarly, TikTok’s popularity extends beyond young demographics to encompass individuals aged 18 to 34 years, who account for 36% of the platform’s users worldwide [112]. Given that parenting information on TikTok and Instagram remains largely uncharted in research, we recommend that future research endeavors encompass a diverse array of methodological approaches and cover all 4 thematic domains of this study (ie, motivations, content type, impact, and interventions). This multifaceted approach will enable a more comprehensive exploration of these social media platforms.

Most of the studies within this scope (326/338, 96.5%) focused on mothers or parents in general. Although mothers are identified as primary health information seekers and caregivers [113], it is crucial not to overlook the role of fathers. In the 21st century, there has been a discernible increase in fatherly involvement [114,115], as seen in the rise of dad bloggers [76,116]. Dad bloggers attempt to counterbalance the stereotypes and narratives of fatherhood that depict fathers as absent or incapable [116]. Given the scarcity of academic attention to dad bloggers, “dadfluencers,” and fathers in general as a target audience, we recommend that future research explore modern family dynamics in an inclusive manner.

The results of our systematic literature review have already indicated that a substantial portion of research delved into parents’ motivations to seek information on social media (cf cluster 1). Nevertheless, a notable research gap exists in the specific types of online information-seeking behaviors of parents. Furthermore, it would be interesting to investigate whether the types of information seeking are associated with parental consumer behavior as well as parents’ decision-making processes. In addition, research could investigate whether certain types of information lead to more informed parenting decisions.

While there was a substantial number of studies on parenting content on social media (174/338, 51.5%), few examined its impact on parents’ decision-making for their children. Thus, future research is necessary in several key areas. First, neoliberal parenting ideals, which emphasize the individual responsibility of parents and their focus on autonomy [117,118], are increasingly represented on social media [119], but their effects on parenting styles, decisions, norms, and practices remain understudied.

Second, parents devote a significant amount of time to social media seeking support and information [5,10] but face an overload of misinformation on the web [69]. Compounded by their non–“digital native” status, parents often grapple with limited digital knowledge, which necessitates further research on their media and advertising literacy [120]. While current studies predominantly focus on children and adolescents in this regard [121], obtaining insights into parents’ media literacy is equally vital because they not only spend a lot of time on the web but also play a crucial role in their children’s social media literacy [122]. In addition, the overload of health information available both on the web and offline was reported to overwhelm parents, leading to anxiety and confusion [123]. Future research should further investigate these negative effects of information overload on parents in the health domain as well as other domains, such as pregnancy and nutrition.

Third, a nuanced analysis of SMIs’ influence is crucial. Current research mainly emphasizes the negative impact of momfluencers, particularly on mothers [85]. Nevertheless, studies have already indicated that SMIs could in general be interesting sources for promoting prosocial behavior [124,125]. Thus, leveraging momfluencers as allies to endorse prosocial behavior, such as advocating for healthy nutrition, is a highly interesting avenue for future research. However, it is imperative to exercise caution concerning the potential drawbacks associated with the commercial arrangements in which momfluencers engage. Richins and Chaplin [125] demonstrated that parents who seek to ensure their children’s happiness through materialistic parenting inadvertently contribute to the development of materialistic adults in the future. Therefore, future research should scrutinize whether the commercial partnerships of momfluencers inadvertently promote materialistic parenting styles and propose strategies to mitigate such effects.