This illuminating investigation takes a fresh look at the role of media in children's lives. An overview of the formidable challenges parents face and creative ways to overcome them are included, as are strategies for turning a home environment from "high-tech" to "high-touch." Moving beyond demonizing the media, this work, like none before it, articulates the difficulties of parenting in our depersonalized society. It offers hopeful alternatives for all parents wanting to protect children from, and teach children about, media's impact.

Screen-obsessed: Parenting in the Digital Age is the first book solely focusing on parental supervision of children's media use. This book distills important information regarding how parents can effectively guide their offspring living in the multimedia environment. This book discusses an extensive range of theories, issues, and subjects of parental mediation. Readers will discover how parental mediation works, new and traditional theoretical facets, and how this knowledge can be applied in various settings pertinent to the family.

Children and Families in the Digital Age offers a fresh, nuanced, and empirically-based perspective on how families are using digital media to enhance learning, routines, and relationships. This powerful edited collection contributes to a growing body of work suggesting the importance of understanding how the consequences of digital media use are shaped by family culture, values, practices, and the larger social and economic contexts of families’ lives. Chapters offer case studies, real-life examples, and analyses of large-scale national survey data, and provide insights into previously unexplored topics such as the role of siblings in shaping the home media ecology.

Plugged-In Parenting comes at a time when parents find themselves between a rock and a hard place. They want to protect their children from the increasingly violent and sexualized content of movies, TV, the Internet, and music as well as cyberbullying and obsessive cell phone texting. But they fear that simply "laying down the law" will alienate their kids. Can parents stay connected to the media while staying connected to God and to each other? This book makes a powerful case for teaching kids media discernment, but doesn't stop there. It shows how to use teachable moments, evidence from research and pop culture, Scripture, questions, parental example, and a written family entertainment constitution to uphold biblical standards without damaging the parent-child relationship.

Is social media ruining our kids? How much Internet activity is too much? What do FOMO (Fear of Missing Out), sexting, and selfies mean for teens? Are you curious about what research says about how media and technology are affecting childhood? Supported by academic research focused on technology, Media Moms & Digital Dads breaks down complex issues in a friendly, accessible fashion, making it a highly useful and, ultimately, reassuring read for anyone who worries about the impact that media might be having on young minds. Each chapter delves into a different issue related to kids and media so parents can easily find their particular issue of concern. Dr. Uhls ends each chapter with quick takeaways, in the form of tips and guidance for parents. Dr. Uhls' expertise as a former Hollywood film executive and as a current expert on child development and the media gives her a unique and important perspective. As a trained scientist she understands the myriad studies conducted by researchers, and as a mom of digital teens, she knows what actually works and can relate to the reality of being a parent in the 21st century. Dr. Uhls also describes the primary research she conducted at UCLA, including whether extensive screen time impacts non-verbal emotional understanding, which has been covered in the New York Times, Time magazine, and on National Public Radio. There are few more important issues for parents today than helping children safely navigate the digital world in which we live, a world that provides immense opportunity for learning and connecting yet also puts kids in a position to make mistakes and even cause harm. Knowing what the facts are and when and how to get involved is perhaps one of the most challenging aspects of modern parenting. Media Moms & Digital Dads offers parents reassuring and fact-based guidance on how best to manage screens and media for their children.

Family Communication in the Age of Digital and Social Media is an innovative collection of contemporary data-driven research and theorizing about how digital and social media are affecting and changing nearly every aspect of family interaction over the lifespan. The research and thinking featured in the book reflects the intense growth of interest in families in the digital age. Chapters explore communication among couples, families, parents, adolescents, and emerging adults as their realities are created, impacted, changed, structured, improved, influenced and/or inhibited by cell phones, smartphones, personal desktop and laptop computers, MP3 players, e-tablets, e-readers, email, Facebook, photo sharing, Skype, Twitter, SnapChat, blogs, Instagram, and other emerging technologies. Each chapter significantly advances thinking about how digital media have become deeply embedded in the lives of families and couples, as well as how they are affecting the very ways we as twenty-first-century communicators see ourselves and, by extension, conceive of and behave in our most intimate and longest-lasting relationships.