Communicating with Our Families explores the impact of communication technologies on family communication. The scholarship in this collection recognizes the peril and opportunity new communication technologies offer, while responding to questions about the impact of technologies on our families.

Communicating with Our Families: Continuity, Interruption, and Transformation examines how communication technologies are shaping childhood, parenthood, and families by exploring topics such as parental loneliness, family storytelling, family technology rules, mindful technology usage, multigenerational communication, and community. The scholars in this volume work from a human communication perspective and use various research modes of inquiry including quantitative, qualitative, and interpretive methods. Perhaps the most significant question implied by our contributors in this volume is whether the introduction of new communication technologies will fundamentally alter familial forms and if those new groupings that emerge will resemble what has been generally assumed for several millennia.

Section I: Continuity

Chapter 1: Zooming through Change: The Role of Communication Technologies in Intergenerational Family Transitions during the COVID-19 Pandemic – Elizabeth B. Jones

Chapter 2: Narrative Wisdom: Implications from Literature for Family Communication Technology – Janie Harden Fritz

Chapter 3: Rhetorical Constructions of the Reset: Video Games and Family Connections – Paul Lucas

Chapter 4: The Role of Communication and Information Technology in Health Information Seeking – Patty Wharton-Michael

Chapter 5: With Great Power Comes Ethical Communication: Technology, Superheroes, and Family Conversations in Communication Ethics – Christina L. McDowell Marinchak and Tyrell J. Stewart-Harris

Section II: Interruption

Chapter 6: Cellular Television and the Reallocation of Familiar Attention – Joel S. Ward

Chapter 7: Formative Media Consumption: Utilizing Media as Grammatical Foundations of Families – Anthony M. Wachs

Chapter 8: Motherhood and Loneliness: The Social Media Dilemma – Maryl R. McGinley and Jill K. Burk

Section III: Transformation

Chapter 9: “According to Science, This Is Who I Am”: Personal Genome Testing and Adoption Reunions – Melissa Rizzo Weller

Chapter 10: Family Communication Disrupted by Incarceration and the Role of Technology: An Overview – Tiffany Petricini

Chapter 11: Strengthening Families through Web-Based Interventions: Developing and Assessing Feasibility of the “REAL Parenting: Talking About Alcohol” Program – Michelle Miller-Day, Anne E. Ray, Michael L. Hecht, and Rob Turrisi

Chapter 12: Embracing the Transition to Social Media in Parent-Teen Communication – Melissa Rizzo Weller, Angela M. Hosek, and Jessica Cherry