Routledge The Internet Family: Technology in Couple and Family Relationships: Technology in Couple and Family Relationships

In The Internet Family, Drs. Katherine Hertlein and Markie Twist provide a current and comprehensive look at the effects of technology on couple and family relationships. Beginning with an overview of the multifaceted ways in which technology impacts our relationships today, the authors discuss a wide range of topics pertinent to couple and family life. Chapters focus on issues such as online dating and infidelity, parenting and the Internet, video gaming, cyberbullying, and everyday usage of social and new media, before providing guidance on how the reader can successfully navigate the advantages and risks that emerge from the use of specific technologies. An online appendix offers a range of assessments and practical tools for identifying Internet-related problems and solutions. A portion of the text is also devoted to the application of the Couple and Family Technology framework and how it can be effectively integrated into clinicians’ current practice. Couple and family therapists will find this book highly informative, both to use in their own practice and for referring clients to as part of the treatment process. Review   "The new member of the family, technology, is getting older and agile; this member of the family moves fast like a chameleon embedding itself in the psychology of everyday life and the way couples and families do, feel, and think. This book is a must for clinicians trying to understand and map the ways technology and families intensify whatever is happening while also attending at the myriad ways in which we are changing. The book is packed with ways of thinking contextually and relationally about technology: how it can enrich relationships as well as push couples and families into new conundrums. The research in this area is still evolving and the book is ambitious at synthesizing for those that need the scientific and clinical evidence. For clinicians, the continuous synthesis, and the "aha moments" about how new media and emerging technology shape us all are everywhere in the book. The sections within the book are just a wonderful collection of the ways to reconstruct anew what families often see as unresolvable conundrums. I love the titles of the various sections and can see how they can help us all map a territory continuously changing. What may make us dizzy and what may also fascinate us is the rapid change. For some, then the need is to try to control the situation; our esteemed authors are calling for taking a curious journey rather than a set of guidelines to control the rather beautiful and sometimes threatening technological chameleon." Gonzalo Bacigalupe, EdD, MPH, Professor, Department of Counseling and School Psychology, College of Education and Human Development, University of Massachusetts, Boston   "The Internet has reached a central place in interpersonal dynamics – and our personal lives are not exempt from this influence. Our children are growing with technologies unknown a decade ago, challenging the ways in which clinicians can help. Drs. Katherine Hertlein and Markie Twist are both scholars, but more importantly, they are both family therapists – and that shows in every single page of this book. Rather than focusing on lengthy theoretical debates, this book presents numerous examples and practical tools, and proposes frameworks readily usable by clinicians. To those interested in how the new technologies of communication are affecting human relationships, this text provides a set of maps to help navigate the waters of the Internet." Matthieu J. Guitton, PhD, FRAI, Professor, Faculty of Medicine, Université Laval, Quebec City, Canada, and Editor-in-Chief of Computers in Human Behavior    "Perhaps no other factor has altered the family landscape in the 21st century more than the rise of technology. In this remarkable book, Katherine Hertlein and Markie Twist provide a comprehensive, empirically-based, and balanced synthesis of how technology has influe