A new study published last week by Why Moms Rule (oh yes, we do) and picked up by eMarketer showed that Gen Y moms, who are currently in their 20s, communicate more often with the people in their households via digital means than they do in person.
Incoming text from Mom: "I'm in the kitchen cleaning up dinner plates and finishing work on my laptop so will you please get the kids in the bath?"
Huh?
We already know moms in general are 20% more digital than women without children. Let's face it - digital is the enabler to mom's multi-tasking, multi-minding lifestyle.
But this study shows that it's not simply a matter of adding digital communication to in-person exchanges, but that digtial may actually be overtaking the in-person communication for this particular mom segment. (You know, like talking. With your mouth. And perhaps, eye contact, facial expressions and hand gestures.)
Younger moms, who are considered "native" social media users and can't remember not having email, are using digital platforms to not only keep up socially with Facebook friends, peer blogger moms and Twitter followers, but now they're conversing with their own family members more via electronic devices (52%) than face to face (48%).
It's happening. Moms are slowly morphing into robots and taking over the world. Social media is turning young moms into mombots! Hide your children!
As Gen Y moms progress through the stages of motherhood, it will be interesting to see if this trend continues to gain speed and their gap between in-person communication and digital communication widens.
Does this surprise you?
1 comment:
Not long ago I was at a restaurant and witnessed a group of 5 young women having dinner. Before their meals came, most of these women were either texting or carrying on conversations on their cell phones. Not much conversation was taking place among the group. So, I don't know if I am surprised by this study, but it does sort of worry me.
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