Technology in the family dilemma in times of COVID-19 pandemic 2020

Abstract

Technology is a tool that contributes to society. It keeps the sender and the receiver communicated and constantly learning. It has not been an exception during the COVID-19 Pandemic, indeed. It has allowed communication between families about all the arousing circumstances. It has also been the mean to access entertainment such as social networks, online games, virtual education and telework; these are some of the reasons to have as objectives: to analyze the hours, problems in the use of technological equipment in father, mothers and children; identify perceptions of the effects on the use of technology during the COVID-19 Pandemic; associate the number of hours of cell phone use with punishment for children. A non-experimental, descriptive, cross-sectional quantitative investigation was performed. The sample consisted of 50 family parents aged between 23 to 55 years (M = 34, 58 SD = 9,738). A sociodemographic and a Robinson´s Parental Practices questionnaire were applied. The result reveals that telephones are the most frequently used technological equipment among the family members. Behaviors of anger, fatigue and rebellion, communication problems, poor relationship between parents and children, isolation and lack of parents’ authority were the perceptions of the effects of technology use. It can be concluded that father, mother and children remain connected to cell phones between 2 to 4 hours, being a probable cause of triggering problems, such as decline of family coexistence and the couple relationship.