That Parent-Child Conversation Is Becoming Instant, and Online

January 3, 2004 That Parent-Child Conversation Is Becoming Instant, and Online By JOHN SCHWARTZ

ina Gordon types out an instant message and sends it. The data travels some 500 miles, from the computer in her living room in Queens to America Online's servers in Northern Virginia, and then to her son Schuyler's computer, which just happens to be in the next room — about 20 feet away from where she is sitting.

you hungry for dinner?

After a little online banter over dining options, her son, a 17-year-old with a wicked sense of humor and no shortage of attitude, sends his request:

an insty pizza and a beer

don't push your luck, comes the reply.

Instant messaging, long a part of teenagers' lives, is working its way into the broader fabric of the American family. The technology "has really grown up in the last 18 months," said Michael Gartenberg, vice president and research director at Jupiter Research. "It's certainly not just for kids anymore."

Almost three-quarters of all teenagers with online access use instant messaging and about half of all adults have tried the services, surveys show. Adults, who generally began using the services from AOL, Microsoft and Yahoo to stay in touch with co-workers during the day, Mr. Gartenberg said, are saying "this stuff I'm using for work is actually useful in my personal life as well."

Use among adults has grown to include friends and far-flung family members, particularly children away at college. AOL, which provides the most popular service, reports that more than one billion instant messages each day flow through its networks.

And now, as families own more than one computer, the machines spread beyond the den and home networks relying on wireless connections become increasingly popular, instant messaging is taking root within the home itself.

Although it might seem lazy or silly to send electronic messages instead of getting out of a chair and walking into the next room, some psychologists say that the role of the technology within families can be remarkably positive. In many cases, they say, the messages are helping to break down the interpersonal barriers that often prevent open communication.

"Conversation between parents and teenagers could be highly emotional and not necessarily productive," said Elisheva F. Gross, a psychology researcher at the Children's Digital Media Center at the University of California at Los Angeles. When young people are online, however, "it's their turf," she said. "It may be a way for parents to communicate in a language and in a space that their children are more comfortable with."

Teenagers already use online communications to take on difficult topics with one another, said Katelyn McKenna, a research assistant professor in psychology at New York University. Preliminary results from a study she conducted last year, she said, suggest that "they are able to talk with one another about issues that bother them more readily online than when they are talking face to face."

Lissa Parsonnet said that her daughter, Dorrie, is sometimes more open to talking with her and her husband online about difficult subjects, like conflicts with friends, than in person.

"She talks to us as if we're people, not parents," she said.

Ms. Parsonnet, a psychotherapist, said that the online back channel strips away some of the parts of face-to-face communication that complicate matters: "They don't see your face turning red," she said. "They don't see you turning cross — all the things that will shut them up immediately."

Both instant messages and e-mail messages can help smooth things over after a fight, said Nora Gross, a 17-year-old in Manhattan who said that electronic communications had helped strengthen her relationship with her father. "I can remember a few times when we've had little blowups and sent apology letters over e-mail," she said. "We're both writers, so I guess it's easier for us to put our feelings into words through text."

While even quicker than e-mail, instant messages also have the advantage of not actually being instant, Ms. Parsonnet said, because the medium at least gives the user time to compose his or her thoughts and comments before hitting the button.

"You know all the times you wish you'd counted to 10 before you said something?" she said with a laugh. With instant messages, she said, "You have a built-in counting-to-10."

For users, instant-messaging software typically displays, in a small box on the computer screen, a "buddy list" of friends who are online at any given moment. Most instant messaging conversations are one-to-one, but it also possible to include several people in a group discussion — and to carry on multiple sessions with several people at once.

Ms. Parsonnet said that the instant messaging habit began naturally with Dorrie. One night, she wanted to ask Dorrie a question, but "I didn't want to go chasing her around the house." She didn't have to wander around the family's Short Hills, N.J., home, though, because "I could hear her instant message thing bleeping."

She signed on, saw that Dorrie was indeed online, and sent a note. "It was so easy," she recalled.

That ease of use is essential for adopting any new technology, said Michael Osterman, an industry analyst who studies the instant messaging market. The concept should even seem familiar to the many baby boomers who grew up in post-World War II suburban houses with built-in home intercom systems. But families rarely used the clunky devices to talk from room to room, he noted.

Instant messaging puts a much simpler, more effective intercom system at every set of fingertips. "It's an old idea that's been made practical," he said. "Instead of yelling downstairs, `Hey, is there any fried chicken left?' You can I.M. downstairs.' "

Using instant messages to reach out to adolescents fits into the broad structure of experimentation and adaptation that family therapists generally recommend, said A. Rae Simpson, program director for parenting education and research at the M.I.T. Center for Work, Family & Personal Life in Cambridge, Mass.

"People who are having difficulty communicating with each other write to each other," Ms. Simpson said, similar to the way that many parents and adolescents find they can talk more freely in the car than at home because they are not looking directly at each other. "It takes the intensity out of the eye-to-eye contact."

The uses of instant messages in the home can be banal, playful or profound. Lily Mandlin, 15, who lives with her mother and two siblings in a four-bedroom apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side, said that an instant message is sometimes the best way to get her older brother to turn down his stereo.

"A little ping on the computer actually gets to him a lot quicker than screaming, `Turn the music down!' " she said.

Mr. Gartenberg, the industry analyst, said, "there has been more than one time when I have been checking something late at night and discovered one of the kids was logged on. And I said, `What are you doing? Go to bed!' "

Sometimes the messages are more, well, adult. Ms. Gordon, the Queens mother, said that when she and her husband first got laptop computers with wireless cards, they would even send messages to each other as they worked at home, sitting across from each other in bed.

What messages would they send back and forth when they were sitting so close?

"Use your imagination," she said. "Sparks flying across the wireless network, so to speak!"

Kathy Grace, a Web site designer in Austin, said that she is more likely to send instant messages to her husband, Dennis, than to her daughter Ariel, because "we're on different systems." Ariel is on AOL; Ms. Grace and her husband favor Microsoft Messenger, which he uses at work.

Husband and wife will pop a message back and forth while she is working on the laptop at the dining room table and he is using the bedroom PC, even though the house is small, Ms. Grace said. "We keep the bedroom doors closed, and it's easier than shouting," she said.

For all the advantages many families and experts see in instant messaging, some adolescents say that they simply do not want their parents on their buddy list.

"People can be easily misunderstood online," one teenager, who asked that her name not be used, wrote in an I.M. interview. "I am not as reserved when I talk to people online than in real life, so really, it would just exacerbate whatever problem was there."

Back at the Gordon home, the chatter is often just for the fun of wordplay — and that, too, can strengthen the bond between generations.

It is another night, another dinner. Takeout seafood.

want another clam? Nina Gordon asks her son, eating in the next room.

i havent started the crab yet, he replies. A pun-fest ensues.

don't be crabby, she writes.

don't be coy, he replies.

never, she counters. oy, not coy.

While instant messages and e-mail may helpfully supplement face-to-face discussion, experts warn that it should not be relied on as the principal means of communication.

"The question is whether you can use it constructively, to bring it back to the face to face," said Sherry Turkle, director of the Initiative on Technology and Self at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. If the conversation is strictly virtual, she said, "it's not so different from saying, `I have a wonderful epistolary relationship with my husband, who I can't stand.' "

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