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The Parent App: Understanding Families in the Digital Age
Ninety-five percent of American kids have Internet access by age 11; the average number of texts a teenager sends each month is well over 3,000. More families report that technology makes life with children more challenging, not less, as parents today struggle with questions previous generations never Is my thirteen-year-old responsible enough for a Facebook page? What will happen if I give my nine year-old a cell phone?
In The Parent App , Lynn Schofield Clark provides what families have been sorely smart, sensitive, and effective strategies for coping with the dilemmas of digital and mobile media in modern life. Clark set about interviewing scores of mothers and fathers, identifying not only their various approaches, but how they differ according to family income. Parents in upper-income families encourage their children to use media to enhance their education and self-development and to avoid use that might distract them from goals of high achievement. Lower income families, in contrast, encourage the use of digital and mobile media in ways that are respectful, compliant toward parents, and family-focused. Each approach has its own benefits and drawbacks, and whatever the parenting style or economic bracket, parents experience anxiety about how to manage new technology. With the understanding of a parent of teens and the rigor of a social scientist, Clark tackles a host of issues, such as
family communication, online predators, cyber bullying, sexting, gamer drop-outs, helicopter parenting, technological monitoring, the effectiveness of strict controls, and much more.
The Parent App is more than an advice manual. As Clark admits, technology changes too rapidly for that. Rather, she puts parenting in context, exploring the meaning of media challenges and the consequences of our responses-for our lives as family members and as members of society.
In The Parent App , Lynn Schofield Clark provides what families have been sorely smart, sensitive, and effective strategies for coping with the dilemmas of digital and mobile media in modern life. Clark set about interviewing scores of mothers and fathers, identifying not only their various approaches, but how they differ according to family income. Parents in upper-income families encourage their children to use media to enhance their education and self-development and to avoid use that might distract them from goals of high achievement. Lower income families, in contrast, encourage the use of digital and mobile media in ways that are respectful, compliant toward parents, and family-focused. Each approach has its own benefits and drawbacks, and whatever the parenting style or economic bracket, parents experience anxiety about how to manage new technology. With the understanding of a parent of teens and the rigor of a social scientist, Clark tackles a host of issues, such as
family communication, online predators, cyber bullying, sexting, gamer drop-outs, helicopter parenting, technological monitoring, the effectiveness of strict controls, and much more.
The Parent App is more than an advice manual. As Clark admits, technology changes too rapidly for that. Rather, she puts parenting in context, exploring the meaning of media challenges and the consequences of our responses-for our lives as family members and as members of society.
- GenresNonfictionParenting
320 pages, Hardcover
First published October 9, 2012
11 people are currently reading
58 people want to read
About the author
Lynn Schofield Clark
11 booksLynn Schofield Clark is Professor and Chair of the Department of Media, Film and Journalism Studies and Director of the Estlow International Center for Journalism and New Media at the University of Denver. An ethnographer who has studied and worked with diverse U.S. families and young people for more than 15 years, Clark is interested in how the everyday uses of digital, mobile and social media shape peoples’ identities and aspirations, particularly in the context of widening income inequality in the United States. She teaches courses in journalism, media and intersectionalities, and media studies. Clark is also a member of the Research Team YELL (Youth Engaged in Leadership & Learning), which is part of the University of Denver’s Bridge Project under the University’s Graduate School of Social Work.
Clark is coauthor of Young People and the Future of News: Social Media and the Rise of Connective Journalism, published by Cambridge University Press in 2017 with Associate Professor Regina Marchi of Rutgers University. The book traces the practices that are evolving as young people come to see news increasingly as something shared via social networks and social media rather than produced and circulated solely by professional news organizations. It’s been described as “original,” “insightful,” and, by National Public Radio’s Lulu Garcia-Navarro, as “a cautionary tale” for journalists and journalism.
Clark’s book The Parent App: Understanding Families in a Digital Age (Oxford University Press, 2012), was named an Outstanding Academic Title by Choice, and a nice summary of the book can be found in the University of Denver’s magazine. Clark’s first book, From Angels to Aliens: Teenagers, the Media, and the Supernatural (Oxford University Press, 2003/2005) explored how young people from varied (and no) religious backgrounds interpreted popular culture’s stories of the supernatural in relation to religious and spiritual understandings. It received the National Communication Association’s Best Scholarly Book Award from the Ethnography Division. She is also co-author of Media, Home, and Family (Routledge, 2004), which explored how families establish media policies and how those policies relate to family identity-construction practices. She is editor of Religion, Media, and the Marketplace ( Rutgers , 2007), and co-editor of Practicing Religion in the Age of the Media (Columbia University Press, 2002), and a co-editor (with Erika Polson and Radhika Gajjala) of a volume on media and class. Her work is also published in the Journal of Communication, the International Journal of Communication, Journalism, Communication Theory, Critical Studies in Media Communication, New Media & Society, Feminist Media Studies, the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, and in several other journals and edited volumes.
Clark’s research has been cited in The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, LA Times, Boston Globe, Hollywood Reporter, the Independent (U.K.), and in other publications; featured on CNN, NPR, BBC-Radio, and PBS; and has been presented before audiences at Harvard, Oxford, University of Copenhagen, Haifa University, RMIT (Australia), the University of North Carolina, Indiana University, the American Academy of Religion, the International Communication Association, the American Anthropological Association, the Association of Education for Journalism and Mass Communication, and in numerous other national and international venues.
She is Vice President/President Elect of the international Association of Internet Researchers and a past President of the International Society for the study of Media, Religion, and Culture. She was a Visiting Professor at the University of Copenhagen in 2009 and in 2014, Visiting Fellow at the Digital Ethnography Research Center at RMIT (Melbourne, Australia) in 2014, a 1997-98 Louisville Institute Dissertation Fellow and a 1998 nominee to the Harvard Society of Fellows. She serves on the editorial board
Clark is coauthor of Young People and the Future of News: Social Media and the Rise of Connective Journalism, published by Cambridge University Press in 2017 with Associate Professor Regina Marchi of Rutgers University. The book traces the practices that are evolving as young people come to see news increasingly as something shared via social networks and social media rather than produced and circulated solely by professional news organizations. It’s been described as “original,” “insightful,” and, by National Public Radio’s Lulu Garcia-Navarro, as “a cautionary tale” for journalists and journalism.
Clark’s book The Parent App: Understanding Families in a Digital Age (Oxford University Press, 2012), was named an Outstanding Academic Title by Choice, and a nice summary of the book can be found in the University of Denver’s magazine. Clark’s first book, From Angels to Aliens: Teenagers, the Media, and the Supernatural (Oxford University Press, 2003/2005) explored how young people from varied (and no) religious backgrounds interpreted popular culture’s stories of the supernatural in relation to religious and spiritual understandings. It received the National Communication Association’s Best Scholarly Book Award from the Ethnography Division. She is also co-author of Media, Home, and Family (Routledge, 2004), which explored how families establish media policies and how those policies relate to family identity-construction practices. She is editor of Religion, Media, and the Marketplace ( Rutgers , 2007), and co-editor of Practicing Religion in the Age of the Media (Columbia University Press, 2002), and a co-editor (with Erika Polson and Radhika Gajjala) of a volume on media and class. Her work is also published in the Journal of Communication, the International Journal of Communication, Journalism, Communication Theory, Critical Studies in Media Communication, New Media & Society, Feminist Media Studies, the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, and in several other journals and edited volumes.
Clark’s research has been cited in The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, LA Times, Boston Globe, Hollywood Reporter, the Independent (U.K.), and in other publications; featured on CNN, NPR, BBC-Radio, and PBS; and has been presented before audiences at Harvard, Oxford, University of Copenhagen, Haifa University, RMIT (Australia), the University of North Carolina, Indiana University, the American Academy of Religion, the International Communication Association, the American Anthropological Association, the Association of Education for Journalism and Mass Communication, and in numerous other national and international venues.
She is Vice President/President Elect of the international Association of Internet Researchers and a past President of the International Society for the study of Media, Religion, and Culture. She was a Visiting Professor at the University of Copenhagen in 2009 and in 2014, Visiting Fellow at the Digital Ethnography Research Center at RMIT (Melbourne, Australia) in 2014, a 1997-98 Louisville Institute Dissertation Fellow and a 1998 nominee to the Harvard Society of Fellows. She serves on the editorial board
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
January 13, 2019
The Parent App is an academic book that uses qualitative data (from interviews and focus groups) with American parents of teenagers to document how media and technology rules and needs vary by socioeconomic status. Clark extends Annette Lareau's Unequal Childhoods by mapping out family dynamics and social class impact how technology is situated in the lives of American teenagers. There were bits of Clark's writing, specifically about her positionally, that would I would like to adopt in my own writing. The last chapter is likely the most relevant to those not pursuing this topic for academic purposes. The most helpful piece of the whole book for the casual reader is probably Clark's recommended family technology agreement (that she has used with her own children and is loosely described in this blog post).
For more reviews, check out www.girlwithabookblog.com!
For more reviews, check out www.girlwithabookblog.com!
March 1, 2013
Lynn Schofield Clark's sociological research and analysis will challenge many Americans' understandings about family communication and digital media. Observing a significant class-based differences in two predominant ethics of communication and sharing interviews she conducted with youth and with parents displays the emotional work of both youth and parents in how to be strong and healthy families and use digital media well.
I strongly recommend this book for religious leaders, because these are issues engaging all our families, regardless of economic advantage or disadvantage, and because how we ourselves approach using these media reflects our own preferences and learned communication patterns. Hopefully, the text will open avenues of conversation and dialogue in faith communities, with youth and adults, and lead to ways of embracing the best of both of the main ethics of communications and grounding those in faith.
I strongly recommend this book for religious leaders, because these are issues engaging all our families, regardless of economic advantage or disadvantage, and because how we ourselves approach using these media reflects our own preferences and learned communication patterns. Hopefully, the text will open avenues of conversation and dialogue in faith communities, with youth and adults, and lead to ways of embracing the best of both of the main ethics of communications and grounding those in faith.
February 28, 2014
Thought provoking but a bit frustrating. This book reads a lot like a college text book. Be prepared. As a parent with kids ranging from 8 to 15, this book had a number of case studies that offered me some new perspectives on managing technology in our family. However, I think Lynn Schofield Clark overlooks some key factors in how kids are using technology in less than positive ways and the impact this is having on them and parents' decisions about when to allow their children to access to a range of apps and websites. This was a huge hole in this book.
I still recommend the book as it does offer some new perspectives, especially to middle/upper class American parents. With that said, feel free to read the final chapter first :-)
I still recommend the book as it does offer some new perspectives, especially to middle/upper class American parents. With that said, feel free to read the final chapter first :-)
November 4, 2012
We are living in digital age with connections to gizmos and gadgets that are connected social media outlets and so much more. It is enough to drive any parent mad with insanity when you add a hormonal teen to mix; I wonder some days that if someone may be putting me in a padded cell somewhere. I was blessed with all girls and they all range in age from a three year old toddler to an eleven year old tween to twelve going on thirty preteen to an attitude full out boy crazed seventeen year old. This was extremely helpful for me.
The Parent App is more than a parenting how to book, it is more like a guide book that helps parent without hindering or confusing them.
Highly Recommended Read!
The Parent App is more than a parenting how to book, it is more like a guide book that helps parent without hindering or confusing them.
Highly Recommended Read!
February 17, 2021
The topic of this book definitely brings something new to the bookshelf, and Clark proposes and executes her thesis in a way that is not only clear, but engaging and relevant to every reader in some way or another. I think it brings value to any person- parent or child (I myself am a college student)- because even for someone who is perhaps past the age of parental regulation, it presents a wide variety of family situations and how each handled technology, eventually relating back to either the upper class ethic of expressive empowerment or the less-advantaged ethic of respectful connectedness.
February 26, 2016
Who is this book written for? If it is for academics (as it seems to be), then the most effective way to convey this information would have been a single, concisely-written journal article highlighting the findings of this research. Much better use of readers' time.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews