Generations plug in

From womb to tomb, technology is changing how we communicate and connect with our families. Leslie Dinaberg boots up, logs in and decrypts the source code of our tech-savvy lives.

Image courtesy Wikipedia Commons.

Bonding before birth

Starting almost at conception, people bond with their children in ways they never used to in the early stages of pregnancy, said Sociocultural Anthropologist Francesca Bray, a professor at UCSB.

“Already at six weeks you knew if it was a boy or girl … you start to relate to it, you give it a name, you can circulate the ultrasound to all of your friends. How many people have an ultrasound pinned up to their fridge it’s the first picture of the baby,” said Bray, who has conducted extensive research on the roles on new technology in everyday life.

Babytech

When the baby’s born, the archive takes shape. “The social pressure that we had to get those photos up on the Internet for the grandparents and the in-laws was tremendous,” said a new mother. “And you have to keep those photos coming, really on a weekly basis, to keep them happy.”

Not only are those early childhood memories stored on the computer, they’re also on the television, thanks to camcorders, and in miniature form on cell phones and PDAs. Now that we’re spending more time in our cars than ever before, SUVs and other family-friendly cars come equipped with DVD players to keep the back seat peanut gallery constantly entertained.

Then there’s the “nanny cam” (a stuffed bear wired with a video camera), the technology of choice for freaked-out parents afraid to leave their little darling in another person’s care. Upscale daycare centers even offer 24-hour Internet surveillance for parents while they’re at work.

“Technologies are marketed to moms not as a fulfillment of desire but as a fulfillment of responsibility,” said Bray.

Keeping track of the kids

There’s a whole new set of perceived needs that have grown up around these new technologies, including the need to know where your family members are and what they’re doing every hour of the day.

“My 11-year-old daughter Kyle went on a play date last week and emailed me a picture of her and her friend all dressed up, and the picture was taken from a cell phone,” said Stacy DeBroff, author of The Mom Book and founder of momcentral.com.

“This last summer, my son Brooks (9) went to sleep-away camp in New Hampshire for seven weeks. He was completely fine with the separation, but I was a wreck,” said DeBroff. But every day, the camp took dozens of digital pictures of the campers and emailed the whole day’s worth to parents.

Teens lead the way

Teens often are the instigators of the family’s first foray onto the Internet and end up teaching other family members how to use it, according to research by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. “These new developments reverse the tradition of parents as teachers and children as learners and can play a beneficial role in family life as the teens gain in self-respect and show their competence to their parents,” found the study.

“Children have the most facility with new technologies but parents and grandparents are inexorably drawn in too because of their family roles. They have to learn to click a mouse,” observed Bray.

As the kids become more web-savvy, parents naturally develop concerns about the amount of time that their children spend online and about the people and material they encounter in cyberspace.

“Obviously one of the disadvantages of this amazing information technology is that you don’t know who your children are talking to. You don’t know where or what sites they’re downloading and trying to keep some degree of control over your children is something that a lot of parents feel very strongly about,” said Bray. Parental control software has developed to help address those concerns. In fact, MSN parental control software has joined the ranks of Clairol Nice ‘N Easy, Kellogg’s breakfast cereals and Campbell’s soup in earning the Good Housekeeping seal of approval.

Short attention span theater

Email is often billed as the “killer app” for the Internet. Many report their email use increases their communication with key family and friends and enhances their connection to them, but instant messaging or “IM” has attracted close to 13 million teenagers, according to the Pew study. “Talking to buddies online has become the information-age way for teens to hang out and beat back boredom.” Parents are also getting in on the act, with many claiming that it’s easier and more pleasant to type in “dinner’s ready” than it is to yell upstairs to the kids.

Similarly, as cell phones have become more pervasive, teenagers have been the first to embrace text messaging. According to an informal survey by researchers from Rutgers University, half of students with cell phone text-messaging capabilities have used them in class. It’s like passing notes, but harder to get busted.

In addition to altering how teens interact with their friends, technology is also introducing new dynamics into family life. Pew’s research found that in their overall judgment, parents think that the Internet’s role in their children’s lives beneficial. “More than half of parents of online youth believe the Net is generally a good thing for their children and only six percent believe it is bad for their children. Some 38 percent do not think it has had an effect on their child one way or the other.”

Connecting from college

As teenagers grow up and leave home, technology becomes even more critical in their communication with family. With time zone differences and late night hours kept by many college students, email is often the easiest way to reach mom and dad. In fact, the Pew survey found that Internet users in college are twice as likely to have online discussions compared to the overall online population.

Gran gets in the game

Technology has also made it easier to communicate with Grandma and Grandpa. “Even though many other online activities hold limited appeal to senior citizens, email has been completely embraced by Internet users over the age of 65,” found the Pew Survey. “Often encouraged by younger family members to start using email, wired seniors can be fervent message senders. In our surveys, their use of email has typically held steady or marginally surpassed the overall trend of all users.”

Tales from the grave

Reaching out to family through technology can also continue when the older generation is no longer around. For example, Memorypost.com was originally developed as a memorial site for company owner Tosh Bulger’s Great Aunt Sevelta when she passed away. “We decided to make a website where people could go and leave stories,” he said. Researching genealogy has also become a favorite online pursuit.

The big picture

Most of the new technologies are reinforcing existing social values, rather than transforming them, according to Bray. “What they do do is they extend the range of social bonding and of geographic distance that can be counted within our networks of intimacy,” she said. “Perhaps what they’re doing is not so much revolutionizing the way we think about families and technology and domestic relations so much as reinforcing them.”

Universal translator

Lost in cyberspace? Here’s a quiz to see how up you are on online speak.

1. IMHO means

a. I’m at home

b. I’m a lady of the evening

c. In my humble opinion

2. GTG stands for

a. The sorority, Gamma Theta Gamma

b. Golly, that’s great

c. Got to go

3. B/F

a. Big friggin deal

b. Beer and fries

c. Boyfriend

4. ITA

a. Internet time of arrival

b. I’m a teaching assistant

c. I totally agree

5. TTFN

a. Too tall for nerds

b. Talk to friends needlessly

c. Ta ta for now

The answers are all “c” IIRC (if I recall correctly).

FWIW (for what it’s worth) there are some great websites with smilies, acronyms and emoticons, including www.cknow.com/ckinfo/emoticons.htm and www.computeruser.com.

L8TR (later).

LOTA (lots of thundering applause).

Originally published in South Coast Beacon on February 9, 2004.

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