Internet, Cellphones May Strengthen Family Unit, Study Finds

"I think it brings us closer, because we're able to communicate throughout the day," said Randy, 38. "I don't know what we did without it."

Ana, 42, said she finds it disconcerting to be without her BlackBerry. "I definitely feel naked without it," she said.

Many parents have embraced technology because they think their children will benefit, said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet project.

"Parents are extending themselves to provide their children with technology because they think it's important or useful," he said.

Respondents to the poll said family life was a top priority. Fifty-eight percent said they had family dinners every day, and 26 percent said almost every day.

Still, the poll showed that technology could have drawbacks. Families with multiple communication devices were less likely than other groups to eat dinner together daily and to feel satisfied that they had enough family time. But researchers said the heaviest technology users are also people with the heaviest work schedules, which could explain this.

The ease of being in touch has created a phenomenon that Rainie calls "love taps," in which couples exchange hellos and touch base with a regularity that did not exist 10 years ago.

This practice extends to children, too. Forty-two percent of parents with children ages 7 to 17 call their sons and daughters once a day or more on a cellphone, 35 percent keep in touch on a landline and 7 percent communicate by text, according to the poll.

The popularity of high-speed Internet -- now in 66 percent of two-parent homes, according to the poll -- has created another family phenomenon: huddling around a screen to watch YouTube videos together or other Internet entertainment, a kind of "virtual hearth," Rainie said.

Still, not everyone is a convert to the age of instant communication.

Alex Portillo, 37, a father of three in Clarksburg who finds it useful in business, said that he is less convinced of its benefit at home, even though there are four cellphones in his family and six computers.

He said he limits how the devices are used, not wanting them to replace more important face-to-face experiences.

As a society, Portillo said, "we have so many communications devices that we don't have time for each other. . . . It only drifts the family apart."