Research
Managing Family Technology Use
Families are increasingly challenged to balance technology and Internet use in their daily lives.
Children are adopting mobile phones and social media sites at younger ages and parents are challenged to understand their children's behaviors and parents them effectively.
A number of questions exist: What are children doing with technology? What are the effects of technology use on their social relationships and school performance?
How are parents' modeling behaviors to their children? How should parents model behaviors?
This research takes theoretical and empirical approaches to studying, designing, and building technologies to support family technology use.
This research is supported by
NSF Award #1318143.
How Parents Use Social Media
Parents are one of the fastest growing demographics of social media users. They use social media to seek and provide information and social support with other parents online; yet, little is known to what extent social media sites serve the needs of parents effectively. This multi-threaded research uses quantitative and qualitative approaches to understand the relationship between parents, parenting, and social media use within a variety of contexts and demographics.
Social Media Use in Emerging Contexts
The Internet has dramatically changed the way people connect, socialize, and seek information. Yet, differences in access and participation persist. This work explores variations in technology adoption and use among different socioeconomic status groups. New directions include drawing on structural predictors, geography, and demographics to explore online participation.