Abstract
What and who a family is, is continually changing. Family is a place, an ever changing set of social relationships, an evolving archive of precious artefacts and the actions collectively unfolding that bring all of these elements into meaningful cohesion. Over space and time familial structure shifts; it expands, contracts, solidifies and dissolves. As people grow older, family members may grow apart, move away, craft a new family with another spouse, or experience the loss of those that once were core to the family’s foundation. In any circumstances, and perhaps especially these, characterizing and understanding family life is complex. What is certain is significant and diverse work is done by a family to adapt to unfolding changes, and the practices and processes though which this work is achieved is partly constitutive of the evolving idea of family itself. While the ways members of a family personally and collectively work to adapt to unfolding changes are heterogeneous, it is clear that interactive technology is becoming a common part of the fabric of this kind of work.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Amato, P.R. (2001). Children of Divorce in the 1990s. Journal of Family Psychology, 15, 3, 355-370.
Amato, P.R. (2004). Parenting Through Family Transitions. Social Policy Journal of New Zealand, 23, 31-44.
Arditti, J. A. (1999). Rethinking relationships between divorced mothers and their children: Capitalizing on family strengths. Family Relations, 48, 109-119.
Beech, S., Geelhoed, E., Murphy, R., Parker, J., Sellen, A. and Shaw, K. (2003). The Lifestyles of Working Parents: Implications and Opportunities for New Technologies. HP Technical Report: HPL-2003-88, 1-114.
Bovil, M., Livingstone, S. (Eds.) (2001). Children and their changing media environment. London: Erlbaum.
Brown, B., Taylor, A, Izadi, S., Sellen, A., Kaye, J. (2007). Locating Family Values: A Field Trial of the Whereabouts Clock. In Proc. of UbiComp '07, 354-371.
Cowan, P. A. and McHale, J. P. (1996). Coparenting in a Family Context: Emerging Achievements, Current Dilemmas, and Future Directions. New Directions for Child Development, 74, 93-106.
Chawla, L. (1992). Childhood Place Attachments. In Place Attachment. Altman, I., Low, S. (ed). Plenum Press, 63-86.
Csikszenthmihalyi, M., Rochberg-Halton, E. (1981). The Meaning of Things: Domestic Symbols and the Self. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Darrah, C. et al. (2001). Families and Work: An Ethnography of Dual Career Families. Final Report to Sloan Foundation grant # 95192-0113.
Davidoff, S., Lee, M. K., Yiu, C., Zimmerman, J. and Dey, A. K. (2006). Principles of Smart Home Control. In Proc. of UbiComp, Springer, 19-34.
Davidoff, S., Zimmerman, J., & Dey, A. (2010). How Routine Learners can Support Family Coordination. In Proc. of CHI ’10, 2461-2470.
Finch, J., Mason, J. (2000). Passing On: Kinship & Inheritance in England. Routledge.
Fitzpatrick, M, Vangelisti, A. (Eds.) (1995). Explaining Family Interactions. Sage Publications: London.
Frissen, V. A. Icts in the Rush Hour of Life. The Information Society, 16 (March 1999), 65-75.
Frohlich, D., Murphy, R. (2000). The Memory Box. Personal Ubiquitous Comput. 4, 4 (January 2000), 238-240.
Golden, A., Dalgleish, T., Mackintosh, B. 2007. Levels of Specificity of Autobiographical Memories and of Biographical Memories of the Deceased in Bereaved Individuals With and Without Complicated Grief. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, Vol. 116, 4, 786-795.
Hallam, E., Hockey, J. (001). Death, Memory and Material Culture, Oxford, Berg.
Harper, R. (2010). Texture: Human Expression in the Age of Communications Overload. MIT Press: Cambridge, MA.
Ito, M. et al. (2009). Hanging Out, Messing Around, Geeking out: Kids Living and Learning with New Media. MIT Press: Cambridge, MA.
Kelly, J.B. (1997). Children’s Living Arrangements Following Separation and Divorce: Insights From Empirical and Clinical Research. Family Process, 46, 1, 35-52.
Kim, S., Kim, M., Park, S., Jin, Y., & Choi, W. (2004). Gate Reminder: A Design case of a smart reminder. In Proc. DIS ‘04, 81-90.
Kharfen, M. (1999, March 26). HHS LAUNCHES “BE THEIR DAD” PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITY CAMPAIGN. US Department of Health and Human Services. Retrieved from on 2011, 21 June: http://archive.hhs.gov/news/press/1999pres/990326.html
Kirk, D., Sellen, A. (2010). On human remains: Values and practice in the home archiving of cherished objects. ACM Trans. Comput.-Hum. Interact. 17, 3, Article 10 (July 2010).
Kleine, S., Baker, S. 2004. An Integrative Review of Material Possession Attachment. Academy of Marketing Science Review. 1-39.
Massimi, M., Odom, W., Kirk, D., Banks, R. (2011). Matters of Life and Death: Locating the End of Life in Lifespan-Oriented HCI Research. In proceedings of SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. Vancouver, Canada. CHI ’11. ACM.
McHale, J.P. (1997). Overt and Covert Coparenting Processes in the Family. Family Process, 36, 2, 183-201.
Miller, D., Parrot, F. 2009. Loss and material culture in south London. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Vol 15, 3, 502-519.
Neustaeder, C., Bernheim Brush, A.J., Greenburg, S. (2009). The Calendar is Crucial: Coordination and Awareness through the Family Calendar. ACM Trans. Comput.-Hum. Interact. 16, 1, Article 6.
Newman, D., Grauerholz, L. (2002). Sociology of Families. Sage publications: London.
Nunes, M., Greenburg, S., Neustaeder, C. 2008. Sharing digital photographs in the home through physical mementos, souvenirs, and keepsakes. In Proc. of DIS ’08, 250-260.
Odom, W. Zimmerman, J., Forlizzi, J. (2011). Teenagers and Their Virtual Possessions: Design Opportunities and Issues. In proceedings of SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. Vancouver, Canada. CHI ’11. ACM Press.
Odom, W., Harper, R., Sellen, A., Kirk, D., Banks, R. (2010). Passing On & Putting To Rest: Understanding Bereavement in the context of Interactive Technologies. In proceedings of SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. Atlanta, USA. CHI ’10. ACM Press, 1831-1840.
Odom, W. Zimmerman, J., Forlizzi, J. (2010). Designing for Dynamic Family Structures: Divorced Families and Interactive Systems. In proceedings of Designing Interactive Systems. Aarhus, Denmark. DIS ’10. ACM Press, 151-160.
Park, S.Y., and Zimmerman, J. (2010). Investigating the Opportunity for a Smart Activity Bag. In Proceedings of the 28th international conference on Human factors in computing systems (CHI '10). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 2543-2552.
Petrelli, D. et al. (2008). AutoTopography: what can physical mementos tell us about digital memories? In Proceedings of CHI '08, ACM Press 53-62.
Petrelli, D., van den Hoven, E., Whittaker, S. (2009). Making history: intentional capture of future memories. In Proc. of CHI '09, ACM Press, 1723-1732.
Prigerson et al. (2009). Prolonged Grief Disorder: Psychometric Validation of Criteria Proposed for DSM-V and ICD-11. PLoS Med 6(8): e1000121.
Proshansky, H., Fabian, A. & Kaminoff, R. (1983). Place identity: Physical world socialization of the self. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 3, 57-83.
Steele, J.R. & Brown, J.D. (1995) Adolescent room culture: Studying media in the context of everyday life. In Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 24, 5, 551-576.
Strain, J. (2003). Households as Morally Ordered Communities: Explorations in the Dynamics of Family Life. In Harper, R. (ed.) Inside the Smart Home. Springer.
Strauss, A. and Corbin, J. (1990). Basics of Qualitative Research: Grounded Theory Procedures and Techniques. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Sudnow, D. 1967. Passing On: The Social Organization of Dying. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.
Taylor, A. S. and Swan, L. (2005). Artful systems in the home. In Proc. of CHI '05, 641-650.
Taylor, A., Harper, R., Swan, L., Izadi, S., Sellen, A., Perry, M. 2007. Homes that make us smart. Personal Ubiquitous Comput. 11, 5 (June 2007), 383-393.
United States Census. 2005. Children Under 18 Years Old By Presence Of Parents: 1980, 1990, 1995, 2000 And 2004 [By Race And Marital Status], p. 54.
van Gennep, A. (1977). The Rites of Passage. London: Routledge.
Williams, A., Anderson, K., Dourish, P. (2008). Anchored Mobilities: Mobile Technology and Transnational Migration. In Proc. of DIS 08, 323-332.
Wortham, J. (2010). As Older Users Join Facebook, Network Grapples With Death. The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/18/technology/18death.html?_r=1%26scp=1%26sq=ghosts%20reach%20out%26st=cse.
Yarosh, S., Chieh, Y., Chew, D., Abowd, G. (2009). Supporting Long-Distance Parent-Child Interaction in Divorced Families. in International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, Volume 67, Issue 2, February 2009, 192-20.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2011 Springer London
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Odom, W. et al. (2011). Absence and Family Life: Understanding and Supporting Adaption to Change. In: Harper, R. (eds) The Connected Home: The Future of Domestic Life. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-85729-476-0_12
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-85729-476-0_12
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, London
Print ISBN: 978-0-85729-475-3
Online ISBN: 978-0-85729-476-0
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)