The Internet Destroying Our Families? Not So Fast, Says New Pew Study.

Since the advent of the ‘Internets’, pundits have been pontificating about technology’s role in the brewing break-up of the American family.

Stories about bleary-eyed kids mesmerized by the PC instead of Mom’s meatloaf, chattering on the cell with their bffs instead of playing catch with Dad and IM-ing from the basement rec room to say ‘sweet dreams’ have been rampant for years.

Which is why this Digital Parent is so thrilled with today’s release of a new study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, which says among all kinds of households, the traditional “nuclear” family has the highest rate of technology use and ownership. Tech-friendly connectedness and sharing of things online is common.

This is true.  My daughter told me yesterday she had received three ‘fart’ youtube links from her Dad. 

The Pew study found that households with a married couple and minor children are more likely than other household types – including single adults, homes with unrelated adults such as roommates or group homes, or couples without children – to have mobile phones and use the Internet.

The nationwide survey of 2,252 adults shows technology heavily influencing family life, letting parents and children stay in touch more regularly and view material online together. The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.3 percentage points.

Some of the key findings include:

• Cell phones and high-speed Internet connections are common: 89% of married-with-children households own multiple cell phones, and 66% have high-speed Internet connections – well above the national average of 52% for all households, according to Pew.

• 42% of parents contact their children every day via cell phone, making cell phones the most popular communication tool between parents and children.

• 52% of married-with-children households go online together at least a few times a week, and another 34% of those families have “shared screen moments” at least occasionally.

• 70% of couples in which both partners own a mobile phone contact each other daily to say hello or chat, while 54% of couples who have only one or no cell phones do.

• 64% of couples in which both partners own a cell phone contact each other daily to coordinate their schedules; 47% of couples who have one or no cell phones do.

And staying connected through technology doesn’t mean sacrificing traditional forms of family togetherness such as sharing a meal. About 80% of families with multiple cell phones or multiple computers said they had dinner together every day or almost every day, according to Pew.

“One thing that surprised me is how together American families are now,” said Barry Wellman, sociology professor at the University of Toronto and an author of the study. “There is always a lot of information – a lot of hype – about how things are falling apart, and the latest boogeyman has been the Internet.

“What we are getting is that people are using it to be connected during the day and then at night and weekends they are staying together – they are not going their separate ways.”

And just in case they do go their separate ways — like off to college — this connectedness may actually increase.  I always know where my daughter is at midnight on a Saturday night in Berkeley. I simply check her Facebook status.

Thanks to jsonline.