Tech Trade-offs in Time Zone Challenged Families

Before moving to California, I lived in the moderately named "Central Standard" time zone in the United States. One hour off the east coast, two off the west was not a drastic difference to communicate with anyone I knew in the country. However, I find my phone inundated with text messages from friends who moved to the East coast in the mornings when I wake up due to the three hour time difference. Time zones alter the regularity of communication between friends and family.

Researchers Xiang Cao et al published an article in 2010 titled "Understanding Family Communication across Time Zones." Through interviewing a small sample of families living in different time zones, they found that families favor synchronous communication (communication in real-time, like phone and Skype calls) over asynchronous communication (message-based, time-stamped communication such as instant messaging, email, and text messaging). Families prefer synchronous communication because it most closely resembles the mode of communication the family may have had when living together. Especially with internet call programs like Facetime, Skype, or Oovoo that provide the personal element of video, this can make it almost seem like a family is in one place. Unfortunately, greater time differences often render synchronous communication less practical, for example, the researchers note a difference of 8 hours matches up with either work or sleep for either side of the conversation. These families rely on occasional emails and sparse sessions of synchronous communication.

In the conclusion of the paper, the authors propose a timed-release message system for emails, video messages, or voicemail to make the experiences of separated families more relevant to each other. However, I believe seeing a time stamp that says your daughter emailed you fifteen minutes ago provides false hope of presence, when in reality she emailed you fifteen hours ago from the other side of the globe.

Synchronous communication requires careful coordination based on knowledge of daily schedules. In cases where the communication window was very tight, the researchers noted that IM status was helpful in determining whether a family member could be contacted. IM status usually limits the options to "available," "offline," "busy," or "idle" to indicate availability to talk, and custom statuses may share too much when considering unrelated online friends. Use of a shared, online family calendar would indicate more than these nondescript statuses. The computer calculates the time zone conversion, and families can see exactly what was on each other's agendas for the day, week, and months ahead in terms of their own day, ameliorating the complications of scheduling time to talk. In addition, families would have a greater sense of what goes on in each other's lives in terms of the other's, furthering a sense of connectedness from far away.

A few online family organizers exist, like Cozi and Famundo, and even Google Calendar has a shared calendar feature. Families can share as much as they like and reap the benefits of feeling involved in a family schedule.

Domestic Robots Obviate the Chore Chart

I don't think enough people understand that Roomba, the vacuuming robot produced by iRobot Inc., is more than just a gadget, it is a navigating robot that consumers invite into their homes to partake in family life.

It's remarkable that Roomba can maneuver – with occasional errors, of course – any home without prior exposure. Just like a human inhabitant in your home, it can “see” the room around it so it does not make a fool of itself tumbling into the couch.

But Roomba is not just a houseguest, it's part of the family. Roomba and other domestic robots, for example, its mopping counterpart Scooba, adopt family roles by doing chores. A high-end, non-autonomous vacuum, which costs around the same as Roomba, doesn't do the work for you. Why, then, hasn't every home purchased a robotic helper?

Jodi Forlizzi in the Human-Computer Interaction department at Carnegie Mellon University observed a group of families with new Roomba vacuums. She reported that families were able to free their routines, and some families had truly adopted Roomba, even giving it names and treating it like a pet.

Roomba has the capability to be an ally by giving family members more time to manage other parts of their lives as well as more time to spend together. Granted, this depends on how much time it takes to vacuum your house, but as more domestic robots enter the home, that time saved doing chores robotically will increase.

Why not befriend something that could make your life more relaxed and fulfilling?

Baby Billboards

In the spring of 2010 when Apple revealed the iAd interface for in-app advertisements, the platform seemed innocuous. App users rejoiced at advertisements that would allow the application to continue running if they clicked on an ad. Ad developers, too, swooned at the Apple name tag.

Few thought of the impact this would have on children. On the family iPad, it was suddenly very normal for the kids to click and see about ten different products or services during one sitting of a game.

Granted, iAdvertisements must follow a strict set of guidelines, designated by Apple. Apple also takes a unique responsibility in policing ad placement, and apparently, Apple has decided that they should not go in games and other apps used by children. Or at least they should appear there less. In May 2011, one app developer received this email regarding ads in his Pokemon themed app:

We periodically review the apps in the iAd Network to ensure that all apps receiving ads are aligned with the needs of our advertisers. Currently, our advertisers prefer that their advertising not appear in applications that are targeted for users that are young children, since their products are not targeted at that audience.

Fair enough, and it's easy to see why this was a problem. Parents who let their kids play with their iDevices often forget they have their iTunes account password keyed in, or they leave it in out of convenience. Kids use iDevices as toys, mostly. It can be hard for them to grasp that real money does come into play.

As a result, humongous bills may ensue. It happened for the family whose daughter accrued $1400 of in-app purchases over a single holiday break. Luckily, the Kays got a refund, but small mistakes happen all the time. To app developers and advertiser's content, those small purchases add up.

Is it right to exploit children through advertising and in-app purchases? I hear the cry that it's "just good business." Apple is making an effort on the advertising front, anyway. For now, it's best that parents encourage their children to be more responsible when they're playing with expensive toys.

EDIT: As of April 2011, the user must enter their iTunes password if it has been over fifteen minutes since the last in-app purchase. But what remains to be said of marketing towards children who see applications as a game, not a business?

Alleviating Caregiver Burdens through Technology

Diagnosis of Alzheimer's or dementia is one of the hardest things that can happen to a family. Suddenly --everything changes. Roles switch, and someone takes on the task of caregiving, an extremely devoted and extremely difficult job. Evidence of this lies in the rate of reports of depression among family caregivers that are cited as anywhere between 30% and 83%. Seeing this as a problem that could be fixed, in 2008, researchers at the University of Miami conducted a study on a program that combines a Computer-Telephone Integrated System (CTIS) with traditional support and therapy to see if the CTIS promoted a decrease in reports of depression.

The CTIS comprised the traditional telephone services of calling and voicemail with mass-message capabilities, a notification feature for reminders from the caregiver's therapist, monthly teleconferences with other REACH (Resources for Enhancing Alzheimer's Caregiver Health) caregivers,  and a database of caregiver resources that included maps and phone numbers. The study found that the CTIS in conjunction with the REACH program was more effective at reducing caregiver depression than REACH alone.

Quite a compelling study, when one takes the relative simplicity of the technology into account. The system functions as a slightly modified a regular telephone; however, considering that the mean age of caregivers was 69 years can testify to its success. People of that age did not necessarily learn how to use a computer the way the average 5-year-old has to to grow up today. The caregivers were not only given an instruction manual for the CTIS but also were personally trained to use the system to ensure that any show of inefficacy was the fault of the program itself. A more complex program may exist, but that one has a different audience. The simplicity of the CTIS program levels the field for older users and invites more of the family to be connected online. This technology is an example of small, elegant changes of pre-existing technologies to help connect families when they need kinship most.

FOCUS World Connects Military Families

The FOCUS (Families OverComing Under Stress) support program for Navy and Marine families had been expanding to Air Force and Army families for the past few years. The in-person program has found a new, more easily accessible home in the cyber world: FOCUS World, a virtual environment designed to help all members of the family communicate better.

The FOCUS World program takes place in a virtual, cozy, family home. Each user chooses an avatar, and a purple alien guides the user through different rooms-- the program has to attract children, after all. The different rooms serve different areas of the program: the Basement is where users give emotional check-ins, the Family Room is a message board and chat room, the Kitchen is where the family decides on goals, the Parent Study has more thorough, text-based resources for parents, and the Attic holds a summary of the whole program.

FOCUS hopes their virtual environment will help families who are not emotionally ready to discuss some things in person to overcome the stresses in their lives and achieve greater closeness. I think the set-up is exactly the right approach. The way the FOCUS World mimics a house promotes the spirit of family. It is friendly to kids, but not so simple that parents will not be interested, thanks to features like the Parent Study. Besides, parents who made the effort to sign up are likely interested in guiding their children through the process. Total family participation is not out of the question at all.

The live chat room is something quite special. This program serves military families for whom deployment is always a possibility and sometimes a fact of life. If the deployed parent has internet access, he or she can log in, enter the Family Room, post a message or see if anyone at home is online. No matter where they are, the whole family sees a virtual representation of something very much like what they get in their own house. FOCUS World could be a home away from home for some.

The use of avatars provides a level of virtual human interaction that might be the next best thing to being there in person with each other. Avatars enable confidence. They may represent how a daughter imagines herself, fully utilizing a child's creativity, or how a wounded father may view himself while adjusting to injury. At times when it is hard to walk into the real-life family room and talk about serious emotions, FOCUS World will help families move closer together by taking advantage of another realm.

Hamlet's Blackberry

Last year, I attended a presentation by William Powers on his book Hamlet's Blackberry. The subject of the book is familiar -- the potential damage of hyper-connectivity -- but I wish to focus on the unique suggestions Powers makes about technology and the family.

In Powers' interview with NPR, he explains the premise of his book. He notes technology does not just refer to  electronic devices; technology has been revolutionizing (and causing anxiety in) society since the beginning of time. Paper was once a new technology that has now assimilated comfortably into our daily lives. We're still toying with the idea of constant connection via the Internet.
Powers advocates the benefits of the new, but he also opines "if we're constantly toggling between people on Facebook and texts and all these new ways of connecting all day long and we never have a sustained connection, it's not really connectedness."

I recall from the lecture I attended that the author was agitated by a pattern he saw in his home at dinnertime. Following each meal, rather than trying to prolong relaxation together, each person in his house would one-by-one trickle away to their own spaces with their laptops, cell phones, etc. The author and father was alarmed by his family's detachment.

Did he cut the cords on everyone's chargers? No, there is good in technology that would have been lost, but over-stimulation takes its toll. Powers promotes balance. Every weekend, Powers' family engages in an "Internet Sabbath" by disconnecting the modem and shutting off cell phones. He believes it gives them the perspective to make his family and himself grateful for what they gain through Internet use.

For me, the idea of a weekly "Internet Sabbath" is romantic, but impractical. It would be irresponsible for me to be away from my email or give up a day to work on an online assignment, not to mention for my parents who are on call most of the time. It's definitely manageable for the duration of one mealtime, however, and I don't see how it could hurt to try a mini-tech-Sabbath out.

Re-linking Families

I consider myself very lucky to have sixteen first cousins and even more second cousins whom I know personally. Yet I often get the sinking feeling that there have to be more out there. I knew my grandfather had started a tree of his family with this information, but it was in print and I had never seen it.

One of my cousins offered to help Papa with the tree -- but he wanted to transfer it online.

Now, my dad's family history is on Geni.com. Geni started in 2007 as a wiki family tree, in which users build a family tree and can invite relatives to the site to collaborate. Users who sign up with an account may add family who are not Geni users, and the users become the "managers" of those profiles. For example, my cousin had to invite me to Geni in association with my entry in order for me to edit my profile and work on the tree.

Geni features a message inbox that adds a level of social networking to the website. The CEO of Geni, Noah Tutak, explains here how he was able to use Geni to learn about and reconnect with his deceased father's family. 

A screenshot from my Geni tree, with my entry indicated by the arrow

I feel like I know family I have never met in person because of this website. Just yesterday, I received a phone call from a second cousin about meeting for the first time. Her profile (wisely) does not show a birth date, but I know the names of her husband and children as well as when she was married. Finding out this way is much easier than calling my lovely but talkative great aunt for the scoop. I somehow know my cousin already, without ever having met her. All this info stays within the family, so there is a sense of security in imparting such private information.

Geni goes into greater depth with more ease than a traditional family tree. Photographs can be added easily to profiles. Clicking on someone's entry takes you to their profile and tells you how exactly you are related. The program is able to compile information such as number of blood relatives, ancestors, and normal relatives that would be very tedious to do manually. Geni sends me email updates about birthdays, new additions, and changes to my family tree. Altering an online tree is so much simpler than editing a traditional tree. 

Most significantly, I think, is that a family's Geni tree cannot be destroyed. While my grandfather's physical files, papers, photographs, and master copy of his tree can be ruined, the Geni tree exists online. Essentially, there are infinite copies of the tree. I or one of my relatives on the site can log in from any computer to share with anyone we choose. The problem of having only one copy which has to be dug out from a file box in your grandfather's closet is negated. It is safer and easier to share family history with Geni.

Geni promises a degree of permanence that makes me wonder, should I fill in my profile more? Would my grandchildren like to have access to a comprehensive record of my life, complete with timeline and photographs? I, myself, treasure old photographs, so I think I might.