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Connected Families Research Group

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Connected Families Research Group

The challenge

Today, almost everyone uses smartphones, apps, and other digital gadgets at home. These tools change how families talk, look out for each other, and share help across generations. But they can also create challenges for parents and families:

  • Family members must identify ways to support and protect each other’s digital technology use and online safety. This is especially difficult because the technology landscape shifts constantly.
  • Not all families have the same resources, so some struggle more than others to ensure both adults and children in the family use digital technologies in a way that is safe and allows them to make the most of the opportunities offered by them.
  • Many devices and services are built with a “typical” family in mind. For example, too often, they are developed for parents who have time, resources, necessary language ability to guide their kids. That makes things particularly difficult for parents, children, and other family members who don’t fit the “typical” model.

Our research

Our team looks at how families navigate, negotiate, and manage digital tools in everyday life. We treat technology as a blend of hardware, software and the social habits that surround it. We expect that digital technologies shape families, but families also shape how these technologies are used and understood.

Specifically, we:

  • Explore how a families’ support networks influence the risks and opportunities young people face online.
  • Investigate how kids, teens, and parents learn digital skills and what role families play in that learning.
  • Look at how digitalisation changes caregiving, support across generations, and daily family routines.
  • Focus on often-overlooked groups, like children in care, to make sure their voices and experiences also get to inform digital policy debate.
  • Study how inequality creates digital gaps and how families can bridge those gaps for better well-being.
  • Study the full life span, from children to couples to adult-child relationships with older parents, to capture the full picture of family digital dynamics.

Our research is interdisciplinary, rigorous, and participatory. We are committed to open science principles, transparent data practices, and treating research participants as partners in knowledge generation throughout the project.

Our impact

Our findings help both scholars and practitioners. We:

  • Contribute crucial knowledge at the intersection of family studies, digital media, education, and public policy
  • Help families navigate complex technological landscapes with confidence and care.
  • Provide evidencebased recommendations for policies that protect and include diverse family situations.
  • Contribute to educational programs that boost families’ confidence and competence with digital tools.
  • Support the design of family services and interventions that lower barriers to digital participation and create more positive online experiences.

By doing this work, we aim to build digital ecosystems that not only reduce risks but also expand opportunities so that every family can thrive in an increasingly connected world.

The team

Projects

News

Is it OK to track your kids?

Podcast

The digital lives of children
How digital technologies impact young children, and new ways to think about the ethical and safety measures that govern their use of technology, with Professor Vicki Nash and Professor Katya Hertog (Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford)