Does the Internet threaten relationship-building and families by compromising the quality and quantity of communications?
“The impact of Internet on households was something we first noticed in 2007 and 2008,” says Michael Gilbert, senior fellow at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Center for the Digital Family and author of The Disposable Male, which analyzes, from a Darwinian perspective, how we feel about sex, money, family, and career.
Gilbert says there has been a sharp dropoff in face-to-face communications between parents and children that has accompanied the growth of online social networks over the past two years.
“There is increasing concern in families about this,” says Gilbert. “There is a general feeling that digital technologies are very helpful, but people are beginning to acknowledge that there is a shadowy side to this technology as well.”
A June 2009 survey by USC's Annenberg Center revealed that the percentage of people who said they spent less time with household members since being connected to the Internet at home has nearly tripled -- from 11 percent in 2006 to 28 percent in 2008. The survey also showed that up to the middle of the first decade of the 21st century, families spent an average of 26 hours per month together. By 2008, that average had dropped 30 percent, to 17.9 hours.
Annenberg’s Gilbert says there are rising technological pressures on the family structure. “American families have always been resilient, but the Internet delivers an engrossing interactive universe into our homes and demands much greater individual commitment. This can play havoc with our personal boundaries… The family is our social foundation, society’s basic building block. We need to guard its health in what otherwise seems to be a boundless digital future.”
In addition to reduced family face-time, one of parents’ greatest fears is that they no longer know who their kids’ friends are, or what their children are doing online. A recent survey by research group Common Sense Media suggests that those fears are well founded.
The survey reported that while parents think their children are checking Facebook once a day, kids are actually checking Facebook 10 or more times daily; that while parents believe their children would never hack into someone else’s account, 25 percent have; that while parents believe their children would never pretend to be an adult, one in five of their children has.
”There is huge disconnect between parents and kids,” James Steyer, Common Sense Media CEO, told the Orlando Sentinel in August. “Kids and teens today live in a 24-7 digital media environment, and it is having a huge impact on their lives.”
On the flip side, no one disputes the enormous benefits the Internet delivers to families and individuals -- nor the fact that, like its technological predecessors, the Web is going to bring technological benefits before societal and ethical forces can catch up with them.
Historians and many others still walking the planet remember initial public concerns about violence in television as TV reached a 64 percent household saturation point in the mid-50s. In the 1940s, when radio was king, families gathered 'round it, went “to the pictures” on Saturday night, and only installed telephones in parlors and hallways, since telephone communications were infrequent and ancillary to what went on at home. Over time, though, technological innovation was incorporated into the family fabric -- as the Internet undoubtedly will be someday.
“The difference between Internet and television is that Internet is totally engaging and demands all of your focus,” says Gilbert. “With television, you can still passively watch and continue to interact with family. Parents, however, are learning to build in ‘best practices’ that support the health of the family while adopting and accepting broader Internet. They are limiting the amount of time online that their youngsters spend, and are also arranging the house where Internet is in a common area, like a den or a kitchen. Everybody recognizes that there are challenges -- but at the same time, there is widespread recognition of Internet’s value.”
— Mary E. Shacklett, President, Transworld Data
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