The pros and cons of technology on family life.

By Richa Aggarwal

Have you ever wondered on the impact of technology on family life? Advancements in technology have strong influence on all the areas of the society. It affects the way the kids and the parents perceive each other. One can highlight how the reach of technology is breaking barriers between parents and kids and however on the other side the technology is creating a family divide. Parenting in digital age has now become more challenging than ever before!

Technologies have affected our families both positively and negatively let’s have a look on how:

Positive impacts of technology: To those busy families who are stressed by work schedules, commuting and multiple after-school activities the mobile phones seem to be the perfect tool to knit the family together during the day and maintain and strengthen family relationships. Majority of families claim that they communicate more using technology and thereby they know each other better. Mobile communication helps the children and their parents to contact each other at any time even when they are apart. Let’s have a glimpse over the positive impacts of technology here:

1) Making planning a snap: In earlier days the families have to take the hassle of travelling and informing if the day’s plan got changed or they used to keep the hosts uninformed. There used to be a huge wastage of time, energy and efforts for the hosts and the invitees. But thanks to technology, as coordinating the change of plans is just a phone call away! From importing guests lists, to delegating tasks, to giving reminders using a party-planning app like Pro Party Planner organizes your family gathering and syncs it across multiple users. So now you can easily skip the massive email threads by using this app.

2) It erases geographical boundaries: The ramifications of distance are profound and to reach a family in case of any trouble the location tracking facility is a great help. The location tracking facility helps the parents to reach the kids as soon as possible if the kids come across some mishap during their way. With video calling options a person can be virtually present near you when talking even if they are staying abroad. Besides these, students can study online; professionals can hunt for jobs and even work from home online. In the world of Internet it becomes easier to find your life-partner on a dating or a matrimonial website. It is also amazing to see how someone could find a long-lost friend through social networking sites and reconnect with them.

3) Create a shared experience: Rather than just interacting at some events, birthdays or marriage functions families are now more connected with social media groups. The new messaging apps have options to set up family groups where one can interact with all members of the family despite of where they are. You can now easily create a shared experience by tuning into a podcast with your family, have your old home movies digitized, capture new memories and even share them on social media instantly. 

4) Home security systems: Emergency alarms as well as the quick response options help to bring the police or the correspondent authority to be at the place at the time of robbery or a fire. With modern security systems the safety within home has added more peace within families.

 5) Parents engaging apps in school: With busy work schedules parents find it difficult to make a visit to the school. During all the activities of their child in campus the parents engaging apps have come to rescue. Through communication apps and school portals they can maintain a good relationship with teachers and learn about the progress of their child in schools.

6) It entertains you: Pop some popcorn and settle in for a movie night at home instead of heading to the theater after your dinner. Video streaming services give you instant access to almost any title you can think of and devices such as Roku and gaming consoles allow you to watch your movie on your television’s big screen. A game of Heads Up a free app for your phone or tablet is sure to have your kids hooting and hollering in no time.

Negative impacts of technology: Family life has completely transformed during generations from the rise of technology. Everyone is so busy with work, school and extracurricular activities that families hardly spend any time together. It has reached to a point where it seems like parents and children are emailing and texting each other more than they are talking to each other even when they are at home together! There’s more communication but very less conversation and more texts. Kids need more face to face interaction with parents. Let’s have a look on the negative impacts of technology here:

1) Lack of quality time spent together: Whether, its morning breakfast or dinner time everybody is giving half of their focus on their personal screens. This severely affects the professional performance of children who are brought up in such a mechanical environment.

It is important to interact with each other at the end of the day when parents and children come back home after their busy schedules to maintain a good bonding among family members.

2) Limited outdoor activities: The sedentary lifestyle of people of all ages is seriously causing them health issues. Junk food is just a call away thereby cooking has become a rare sight. Children are now so busy with gadgets and computer games that they hardly go out to play.

3) Setting wrong example: Parents sit inside the home with their screens and advise the children to go out and play. It is important to teach the kids by setting good examples. If parents do not practice what they preach the children won’t follow.

4) Leading to divorce and loss of jobs: There is a debate on internet addictions and people assert that some websites contribute to cheating on others which often leads to divorce. Some people have also been fired from jobs or put under pressure because they used banned sites at work that undermined the person’s professional standing.

5) Negative effects of television on family life: Families simply sit and ingest what is presented to them without responding or reacting to other family members sitting with them. Furthermore, exposure to violence and sex make children prone to mimic these behaviors and many lives are destroyed due to such behavior.

Society is on the cusp of a social revolution with the proliferation of technologies that are able to overcome the obstacles of time and space with airplanes, cars and the Internet. However by weighing the pros and cons of technology the parents can guide the kids to enjoy life rightfully. The right decision would be to add the right mix of technology in your family and experience the pleasures of both. Even the schools are realizing the negative impacts of technology and taking the children out of the four walls of the classroom to interact with nature. Information about anything is available at our fingertips as technology has made our lives really easy. Families should understand however that even when technologies have made a better place to live; they should not compromise on human values while enjoying it.