Is communication technology bringing families closer together?

How has communication technology affected relationships? Has it brought families closer together or created a divide because new technology means lesser physical interaction?

A new report from Ericsson ConsumerLab, “Bringing Families Closer Together” (August, 2015) – part of Swedish Ericsson’s consumer market insight summary studies – has reemphasized the role of communication technology in today’s families.

The report has confirmed that the while the modern family life has been transformed by communication technology such as the Internet and mobile phones, the new technology has resulted to closer ties among family members.

The new normal in family communication, the new world of “less talk, more text”, has resulted in closer and happier ties between parents and their children, and among siblings, for a happier connection, report said.

“To the busy family, stressed by work schedules, commuting and multiple after-school activities, the mobile phone seems like the perfect tool to knit the family together during the day,” said Ericson ConsumerLab.

It added that “the majority of families claim they communicate more using such technology, know each other better and find that it makes practicalities and logistics much easier during the week.” Mobile communication means, in theory at least, that children and their parents can contact each other at any time even when they are apart.

The report, which was based on interviews with 1,005 US families, including 570 children aged 12-15 years old, reviewed how family members communicate among themselves, in person or via the use of technology such as smartphones and tablets.

Ericsson ConsumerLab assessed these families’ communication habits such as how they communicate when apart and when they are together. It also included the positive impact of communication technology on family relationships.

Ann-Charlotte Kornblad, senior advisor for consumer insights at Ericsson ConsumerLab, stated that family meals and time spent ferrying children to school or activities are still valuable face-to-face occasions.

However, she observed that, through the years, voice communication as a diluted form of face-to-face time has become less preferred compared to texting. “The use of voice in mobile communications between family members has been surpassed by text,” said Kornblad.

Ericsson ConsumerLab concluded that communication technology has a lot of positive effects on families. The most obvious advantage is that it affords family members constant communication with each other.

“The ability to have continuous contact throughout the day with other family members increases the feeling of closeness and happiness,” said the report. The result is that most of the families interviewed affirm that they communicate more and could now claim that they know each other better.

As families use smartphones more, texting is increasing.

“When apart, texting and voice are still the main methods of communication for the majority of families,” said the report. Texting in particular is described by families as a “life saver” for organizing logistics and practicalities in busy dayto-day life.

“Texting and voice are the most used services, while newer communication services are used much less and could be short lived. The use of text messaging is increasing and very few have stopped using it,” the report noted.

For those interviewed in the US study, face-to-face seemed to be the natural choice for “quality conversations”, and for sharing interests. Texting and voice are communications are more practical.

Technology changes at a rapid pace and could offer different services for whatever communication needs families would have.

Ericsson ConsumerLab said that, with more new services, families are able to increase communication time. Some families use more recent services such as WhatsApp and KIK to communicate.

The report said parents with these services communicate five times more with each other, and eight times more with their children. For example, of those interviewed, 19 percent of mothers said they use Whatsapp, while fathers use the service more at 33 percent.

Taking from the mother’s usage, it led to 83 percent more family communication while the father’s higher usage of Whatsapp resulted in 92 percent more communication.

“However, children are also adept at using communication platforms such as Instagram and SnapChat specifically for communicating with friends.” The report noted a “clear divide” on the services that family use with family, and their friends. The reason is children use more services than their parents and they want to ensure they have privacy when communicating with friends.

Meanwhile, the report showed that about 72 percent of parents use restrictions on the use of the mobile phones as a punishment. Parents confiscate mobile phones when these are used after curfew, when children have poor school grades, forgotten homework and engage in inappropriate messaging.

Kornblad recognizes that while communication technology definitely has a positive impact on families, there are also drawbacks. “The study shows that we should be aware that our obsession with our phones and our tablets is eating into our valuable family time,” she cautioned. “Children want more face-toface communication with their parents during the week, and communication technology will not solve this.”

Despite some negative aspects though, the report insisted that when it comes to family communication, most agree that the positive impact of technology is fairly substantial.

“Parents feel that they know a good deal more about what is going on in everyone’s lives, and feel more connected as a result. This is in contrast to the level of knowledge within an earlier generation of families,” said the report. “While children generally had more freedom in the past, parents often knew far less about their lives.”

Communication technology has fostered closer ties in family connections, with parents feeling much more secure about their offspring’s well-being.