There was an article in yesterday’s New York Times about the use of instant messaging between parents and children. I was surprised that the article argued that IM has become integrated into “the broader fabric of the American Familyâ€. Preliminary results from the first two years of my E-neighbors study have found very little use of IM amongst middle-class adults in the maintenance of their personal support networks (including contact with children). I’m sure that the IM continues to grow in popularity, but I doubt that it has become a part of everyday communication for most parents and children. There is a very good article by Bonka Boneva and Robert Kraut in The Internet in Everyday Life that takes a detailed empirical look at parent child relationships and email use. I did like the discussion in the NYT article of local uses of IM; how spouses are using IM to communicate with each other and their children within the same home. NYT Article
The Canadian government’s Policy Research Initiative publishes a wonderful quarterly journal called Horizons. The current issue is focused on research related to social capital in public policy initiatives. At first glance I can’t find any reference to the use of new technologies in building social capital, but it should still be a good read. Not just for Canadian researchers.
My Network Awareness project made its debut in an article by Jennifer Saranow in today’s Wall Street Journal Online. The article is a nice summary of the various types of friend finder, online dating, and social network applications that have become popular over the past year (e.g., Friendster, MatchMobile, etc). The article discusses some of the possible social implication of these technologies and includes a brief review of some developing social network technologies, including my own work and what looks to be some exciting stuff from Eric Paulos and Elizabeth Goodman at Intel Research Berkeley.