Going to college and staying connected

Abstract

For many first-year college students in their late teen years, communicating with parents provides crucial social support. When going to college involves moving away from home for the first time, students and their parents must rely on technologies to keep communication channels open. We studied the ways in which college freshmen communicate with their parents and the various communication technologies they use. Interviews with nineteen first-year students at a major United States university revealed insights into students' perspectives of their communication and relationships with parents. We found students to use a variety of tools to connect with their parents and identified some considerations they make when choosing tools. Furthermore, the use of these communication tools played a significant role in mediating students' social and emotional closeness with, and independence from, their parents. We conclude by discussing technical and social implications for social support of students and student-parent relationships.These findings demonstrate that communication technologies are seen as inevitable for students to stay in touch with their parents and maintain what they perceive as good rela-Session: Privacy and the Home

Inattentive, imprudent and inapt: discovering inadequacies of ICT during life-changing events through the lens of non-users

“…In this research, we identify this point as a factor that contributes to the frustration of non-users especially. Although previous research on LCEs identified the preference for in-depth forms of interaction (Shklovski, Kraut, and Cummings 2008;Lindley, Harper, and Sellen 2009;Smith et al 2012), this study is the first to appreciate the relevance twoto ICT targeting people experiencing an LCE or the particular sensitivities of non-users.…”

“…As the studies occurred one year apart, each of them received separate analysis. Also, as we have noted, the number of qualifying participants may appear small in contrast to those screened but this is customary to this kind of study (Odom, Zimmerman, and Forlizzi 2010b;Smith et al 2012;Bales and Lindley 2013;Moncur, Gibson, and Herron 2016)in fact, the combination of our studies allowed us to analyse a much broader sample size. The combination of these results was also related to our 'T'shaped experimental designthe main study gave us a cross-sectional view of many types of LCE and the unemployment study data provided an opportunity for an in-depth observation into one example.…”

“…Similar issues has been found also in the context of child starting college and leaving home. While social networks offer great opportunities to keep in touch with the family, they are also a source of worry because students often want to present, develop, and maintain two distinct identities, one for their family and one for their friends (Farnham and Churchill 2011;Smith et al 2012). For example, though it could be OK to show to friends a picture of drinking alcohol during a night out, the same picture could be considered inappropriate to show to parents.…”

“…Non-users especially routinely expressed their need for more indepth interactions with their peers who provided support, something seen previously as well (cf. Lindley, Harper, and Sellen 2009;Smith et al 2012). In short, we learned that people experiencing an LCEs are sensitive to the design approaches of these services and the paradigms they build on.…”

Life Transitions and Social Technologies

“…Social technologies are increasingly pervasive in people's experiences with life transitions. Social computing research shows that social technologies benefit people during a wide range of life changes [30] such as transitioning from high school to college [9,34,41], relationship breakups [19,33], changing health conditions [29], pregnancy loss [2], Oliver L. Haimson is an Assistant Professor at University of Michigan School of Information. He conducts social computing research focused on people's changing identities on social media during life transitions, with a research goal of impacting technological inclusion of marginalized users.…”