Emerging Technologies and Family: A Cross-National Study of Family Clinicians' Views

Abstract

Emerging technology adoption poses new challenges and opportunities to families and clinicians. Research that explores clinicians' understanding and use of information-communication technologies; however, is still scarce. Our study, a replication of a cross-national study in four countries (Canada, Mexico, Spain, and the United States), investigated the relationship among clinicians' use of and attitudes toward emerging technologies and their beliefs about technology's impact on families in Turkey. We further inquired the relationship of two factors: the impact of emerging technology on the clinicians' own families and the impact of cultural values on the attitudes toward technology use. The Turkish version of the modified Emerging Technologies and Families Survey was administered to family clinicians. The analytical strategy included a comparison of the data we collected in Turkey (n = 97) and the raw data from the original study (n = 258). We found significant cross-national differences in clinicians' use of and attitudes toward information-communication technologies, and their assessments of families' struggles with emerging technology. We analyzed the data vis-a-vis cultural differences and gave a special emphasis on implications for enhancing clinical practice. (1) Emerging technologies challenge families' and family therapists' assumptions about healthy family processes; attention to the self of the therapist at the intersection of cultural values is core in a sound assessment of families adopting emerging technologies. (2) Cultural humility and a curious stance may counteract the pervasive negative discourse about emerging technology adoption. (3) Empowering parents and couples to put technology in its place may ease the negative impact and enhance the positive influence of these technologies on families.