Technology

These days, when family members are together, they will more than likely be focused not on each other but on their favorite form of technology. Increasingly, “family” time consists of mom, dad and the kids staring at screens rather than communicating with each other in real time. A single evening can involve watching a streaming movie, tweeting, posting on Facebook, checking out a TV show on Hulu, catching up on emails via Blackberry, playing videogames, exploring the latest apps,  researching or shopping  online–and more. The technology-based distractions from any kind of personal interaction are endless.

All of which raises the quesions: Does technology improve or erode family communications? Is it a good or bad thing for a family to be all together in the same room, yet not talking to each other?

Moms can’t live without their smartphones, according to recent research by BabyCenter. In fact, moms’  adoption of smartphones has increased 64% over the past two years, and 51% of moms report that they are “addicted” to smartphones. The survey looked at 5,000 moms across the U.S. Following are some key findings:

• More than half said they bought a smartphone “as a direct result of becoming a mom.”
• After becoming a mom, the most important smartphone features became, in order, the camera, the video, then apps. Fifty two percent of moms said they had 10 or more apps on their phone and one-quarter of them were for their kids.
• Moms are 40% more likely than avergae to use their smartphones for social networking.
• 68% of moms use their smartphones to shop and 62% report that they use shopping apps to compare prices and do research.
• The majorty of moms sleep with their smartphones next to their beds and more than half check their phones first thing in the morning.

Moms, are you devoted to your smartphone? What do you use it for and what kinds of apps would you like to see? Marketers, what apps do you offer for moms and how else do you use smartphones to reach them?

Modern technology is designed to make our lives easier, more productive and less stressful. Except, of course, when it doesn’t.

In a recent Newsweek article entitled “Mommy is Busy Right Now,” columnist Lisa Miller perfectly captures the frustration of using the Internet to complete some of life’s everyday tasks — from paying bills to booking an airline flight. The web, she observes, has “become a nightmare of self-service” in which we must navigate a “maze of portals and passwords” and must first engage with robots before connecting with actual human beings on the phone. Miller writes:

“A simple family vacation requires innumerable visits to destination websites; a suspicious scouring of rankings and reviews; and, at the heart-stopping final moment, a purchase on a site where prices and availability seem to change by the second… The yearning for an old-school travel agent is a metaphor for deeper and probably insoluble prolems of domestic life, circa 2011.”

I know what she means. Smart phones, iPads, et al– they’re all designed to create a constant connection between the user and a virtual world of information–and sometimes, that’s exhausting. From purchasing a tube of toothpaste to scheduling appointments, we have an almost overwhelming host of online options to choose from, and often the technology originally designed to help us is actually making our lives harder.

Reader, do you have moments when you think the Web and even social media are making life more complicated? Can the constant flow of new information actually make you less productive?

The Journal of Adolescent Health reported this month that girls who play video games with parents had better mental health than girls who played them alone or with friends.   The study, entitled “Game On… Girls:  Associations Between Co-Playing Video Games and Adolescent Behavioral and Family Outcomes,” not only found that playing games with mom or dad helped girls feel more connected to their families, but that the same girls were better behaved overall.

“It’s tough for many parents to connect with their teenagers, who sometimes view the other as an alien life form.  Maybe bonding over video games, at least for teen girls, is the way to go,” wrote Rachel Silverman in The Wall Street Journal’s popular blog, “The Juggle.”  It’s the face-to-face interaction – the quality time spent on an activity that adolescents enjoy – that makes the experience so impactful, she said.

The study, which focused on children ages 11 to 16, found that the games needed to be age-appropriate to make an impact.  When games were too mature, the research showed that parents and daughters bonded less.  The reason: intense games interfered with conversation and interaction.

While the results sound logical enough, some parents may find comfort in having a scientific study back up their pricey e-game purchase.  (The study found that boys, surprisingly, did not show a measurable benefit when playing video games with parents.)    

Moms: do you play video games with your tweens and teens?  Will this study influence your decision to purchase certain types of video games?

Marketers: Do you make any games that would be perfect for moms and their daughters to play together?

As moms across the country know, iPads and smart phones have quickly become must-have toys for children, including toddlers.  Savvy companies are jumping on the trend by kid-branding many electronic devices that, until now, were formerly reserved for adult use only. 

“We know that kids love to mimic their parents, whether they are role playing with dolls or pretending to go off to work,” notes Reyne Rice, trend expert for the Toy Industry Association.  In recent months, she says, toy companies have released a host of great products that are essentially kid versions of adult tech toys.

Products such as USB drives and iPod docks now carry the familiar faces kids love.   The latest crop of tech toys for tots range from adorable Sesame Street Video USB Drives and Hello Kitty Mouse and Mouse Pad Sets to sturdy iPod docks from Barbie and Lego Digital Cameras.  Even Pottery Barn Kids has launched its own signature collection of electronics, including DVD players, headphones and earbuds.

So, what does this mean for our kids?  Is all this screen time really a good thing?  In a recent New York Times article on the need for parents and children to embrace unstructured playtime, Hillary Stout writes, “most of the social and intellectual skills one needs to succeed in life and work are first developed through childhood play.”   The writer argues for less structured time for children and calls for a return to the “culture of play.”

The February issue of Parents magazine points out that 2/3 of kids ages 4-7 have already used an iPhone or an iPod Touch, and observes that “Whether this is good or bad is a moot point now — the real challenge is figuring out how to help our children benefit from high-tech tools while still making sure they are playing and learning in the tried and true way.”

Like most things in life, I think, balance is the key.  Encouraging creative and imaginative play is important for kids.  But a little tech time can be a good thing too, especially in this day and age.  To what degree do you let your kids play with tech toys?  How do you find a good balance between play time and screen time in your family?

We have several moms working in the office at Child’s Play Communications, and a recent post on the Wall Street Journal Digits blog generated a good chuckle around the water cooler last week.  The headline?  “Learning to Play Angry Birds before You Can Tie Your Shoes.”

As i-phones and i-pads have quickly become ubiquitous among urban families, it was just a matter of time before a study confirmed what most parents already knew – technology is shifting the way an entire generation of children learns.  The survey, released by AVG Technologies, found that while only 14% of kids ages 4 and 5 could tie their shoes, 21% could operate at least one smartphone app and 34% could open a Web browser.  And while 76% of the same children could play an online computer game, only 31% knew to dial 9-1-1 in an emergency.

And there is no sign that our appetite for apps is cooling.  According to a recent article in the Boston Globe entitled “Apps Push Parents’ Buttons,” the app market will continue to boom.  “There are already more than 300,000 apps…. The number of downloads is expected to hit 76.9 billion worldwide in 2014,” wrote Beth Teitell.  “Exact figures on apps for children are hard to come by, but specialists expect the children’s market to grow with the rest of the field.”

So how much is too much of a good thing?  We love kids’ apps for their entertainment value and, to some degree, their educational virtues. But when kids become more adept at playing Angry Birds than mastering key developmental milestones, some of us are left wondering if this shift is more alarming than amusing.