Family Relations and the Internet: Exploring a Family Boundaries Approach

The introduction of new technologies such as the Internet into the household can potentially change the quality of family relationships. We developed and tested a family boundaries approach, suggesting that frequency and type of Internet use are negatively related to family time and positively related to family conflicts, yielding a low overall perception of family cohesion. We also tested a compositional approach that suggests that the effects on family cohesion are the result of a predisposition in individuals of low self-esteem to be frequent Internet users. The conceptual model was tested by structural equation models and cross-sectional data from the Israeli National Youth Survey (n = 396) of adolescents ages 12 to 18. The results showed support for the family boundaries perspective. The compositional approach received partial support, but it did not substantially change the link of Internet use to family time and family conflicts.