Fast Families, Virtual Children: A Critical Sociology of Families and Schooling

The Internet, cell phones, and other technologies have changed the ways in which people conduct their family lives, raise children, and navigate the blurry boundary between work and home. Private life is colonized by employers, teachers, corporations; family time is taken up by work, homework, and shopping. What it means to be parents and children has changed dramatically. This book shows how the nurturance of family has increasingly become a willful, radical idea in an era of pervasive technology. The authors analyze important trends, including the acceleration and attenuation of childhood, and offer a children's bill of rights and accompanying parental responsibilities.

Beth Anne Shelton is professor of sociology and director of women's studies at the University of Texas at Arlington. Ben Agger is professor of sociology and humanities at the University of Texas at Arlington.