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  • The Parent App
    Clark, Lynn Schofield

    11/2012
    eBook

    How are families responding to the challenges of parenting young people in the digital age? This book draws on in-depth interviews with families from a range of socioeconomic backgrounds in order to trace the difference that social class makes in how families are making decisions about digital and mobile media use. This book finds that upper income families employ an ethic of expressive empowerment, in which parents encourage their children to use these media in relation to education and self-development and to avoid use that might distract them from goals of achievement. Lower income families, in contrast, embrace an ethic of respectful connectedness, in which family members are encouraged to use digital and mobile media in ways that are respectful, compliant toward parents, and family focused. Each approach has its own benefits and drawbacks, as upper income families are increasingly tempted to employ communication technologies in helicopter and surveillance parenting, and lower income families may use technologies in ways that strengthen interfamilial and neighborhood bonds while inadvertently reinforcing social isolation from other groups. The book challenges the hope that digital and mobile media might assist in bridging cultural and economic divides. It concludes that as U.S. families experience lives that are increasingly isolated from those whose economic circumstances differ from their own, the different roles that digital and mobile media are playing in family lives are reinforcing rather than alleviating what continues to be a troubling economic and social gap in U.S. society.