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Family is the fundamental unit of society where a group of people that live together in a permanent arrangement (Cheal, 2002) and it is an important source of security, love, belonging, and identity (Lalor et al., 2007). Various factors affect the functioning of the family. Among that, ICT is at a faster pace. Initially, technology was used for entertainment in families. Nowadays the purpose of the use is slowly changing and it plays a role in all activities of family members. Adults in a family-like to communicate more in messenger and social networking applications using computers and smartphones with their family members, peers, relatives, etc. (Huisman, 2012). For working mothers, the Internet/chats help to plan their daily activities and engage more time with family members from any place (Moore, 2006). This shows working parents have an option to take most of their office works home and ICT provides more time to spend with family members. Television delivers better educational content for children (Wartella, Richert, & Robb, 2010), and the use of video games, videos entertain them than engaging in physical activities. ICT applications also help to communicate/facilitate face-to-face interaction with the non-resident family members (Rudi, 2015). ICT is also reflected in parenting styles. At times, parents prefer to use ICT related activities such as showing cartoons, videos, and programs to kids through TV or smartphones as a babysitter. In this way, ICT has an association in structure and routine activities of the family such as communication, relationship development, education for children, work-home life balance, leisure activities, parenting styles, and many more.
Many studies done by various authors (which are dealt with in this paper’s introduction and literature section) across the world have found the role of ICT use in the family. Those studies are majorly concentrated on developed countries where the technology is well equipped in-household system. Also, the rate of perception and acceptance of technology is different in such countries. Many previous studies also concentrated on studying one ICT among the specific family roles such as father, mother, children, and grandparents. Also, the association of various family functioning variables is not completely focused. Researches in this field are country-specific and it is not suitable to generalize the results to other parts of the world as the family practices changes based on geographical location, culture, provision of technological developments, and nature of acceptance. Hence, there is a need to study how ICT influences the structure and routine activities of families.
This research considered certain of the above-mentioned points as research and the methodological gap in this area. Further, this research studied the influence of ICT usage in the functioning of the family. In studying ICT usage, all the ICT devices which have the possibility of use in family setup was considered without any restrictions. Also, the data was collected from intergeneration family members to extend the scope of the study and understand ICT use in the family across generations.
This study will be a major contribution to the ICT and Family studies area where the Indian region doesn’t expose to these kinds of studies more. The technological growth in the country is still in a developing stage. So these kinds of studies will help the country to understand the usage pattern of people to have betterment in many ways to regulate their family life better. In general, this study will be a major support in understanding the influence of ICT in family functioning in both process and structure of the family.