Blame Technology for Break-Up of Families

Over the past several decades, the US and many other countries around the world, even India in recent years, have been undergoing a transformation from family-oriented societies into individualistic ones.

- BASAB DASGUPTA

Over the past several decades, the US and many other countries around the world, even India in recent years, have been undergoing a transformation from family-oriented societies into individualistic ones. There are explanations in social sciences about this change: some theories attribute this to disintegration of families resulting from divorce, economic hardship requiring both spouses working and empowerment of women to rise beyond their role as housewives.

I worked in the consumer electronics industry during my professional life; unlike the social scientists, I see a strong correlation between this social change and advances in technology. Here is my explanation of this transition based on development of new technologies in electronics.

The first sign of family breakdown was the end of nightly family dinners where family members discussed incidents in their daily lives as well as current events. This formed a strong bond. The main culprit behind the end of this practice was the microwave oven. With every person in the family having a busy individual schedule, microwave ovens provided a convenient alternative to synchronizing a time window for dinner. When a person was hungry, he/she could warm up the meal (either cooked earlier or frozen dinner) and eat alone at their convenience.

Introduction of headphones along with devices like the Sony Walkman in listening to music made it convenient for a listener to enjoy music of his own taste without bothering anyone else or seeking a consensus. However, it also created isolation. One could spend hours on this device without interacting with anyone. Miniature TVs with 6" to 9" screen sizes started to emerge around the same time, allowing individual viewing of TV programmes.