Doing intimate family work through ICTs in the time of networked individualism

Abstract

ABSTRACT Traditionally, family intimacy has been seen as depending on spatial proximity and physical closeness. However, due to individualization and globalization, many families live apart and/or spend their days away from each other. Moreover, a shift in family communication from household-to-household to person-to-person has occurred in the context of so-called networked individualism. These changes make it imperative to investigate how contemporary families communicate to create and maintain intimacy in and across households. Drawing on the concept of doing intimate family work, this study investigates the small acts performed in everyday life to do family intimacy through ICT in the context of networked individualism. We conducted interviews with 6 multigenerational families – spread across 18 households in Sweden and the US. Results show how responsibilities and practices of family communication become part of doing intimate family work, through personalized technology, with consequences for each individual family member. We explore the various affordances family members realize through actions in order to support family intimacy and how these practices reinforce the importance of the family home as a physical base for cross-household family communication.