This volume captures the domestication of mobile communication technologies by families in Asia, and its implications for family interactions and relationships. It showcases research on families across a spectrum of socio-economic profiles, from both rural and urban areas, offering insights on children, adolescents, adults, and the elderly. While mobile communication diffuses through Asia at a blistering pace, families in the region are also experiencing significant changes in light of unprecedented economic growth, globalisation, urbanisation and demographic shifts. Asia is therefore at the crossroads of technological transformation and social change. This book analyses the interactions of these two contemporaneous trends from the perspective of the family, covering a range of family types including nuclear, multi-generational, transnational, and multi-local, spanning the continuum from the media-rich to the media have-less.

Whether members of the family are headed to school or work, smartphones accompany family members throughout the day. The growing sophistication of mobile communication has unleashed a proliferation of apps, channels, and platforms that link parents to their children and the key institutions in their lives. While parents may feel empowered by their ability to provide their children assistance with a click on their smartphone, they may also feel pressured and overwhelmed by this need to always be on call for their children. This book focuses on the phenomenon of transcendent parenting, where parents actively use technology to go beyond traditional, physical practices of parenting. In drawing on the experiences of intensely digitally-connected families in Singapore to tell a global story, Sun Sun Lim argues how transcendent parenting can embody and convey, intentionally or not, the parenting priorities in these households. Chapters outline how parents exploit mobile connectivity to transcend the physical distance between themselves and their children, the online and offline social interaction environments, and the timelessness of seemingly ceaseless parenting. Transcendent Parenting further explores how mobile communication allows parents to be more involved than ever in their children's lives, leaving readers to question whether or not parents have become too involved as a result. With its clear discussions of the effects of transcendent parenting on parents' wellbeing and children's personal development, Transcendent Parenting will appeal to a broad audience of readers, from scholars, educators and policy makers to parents and young people across the globe.

In Asia, amidst its varied levels of economic development and diverse cultural traditions and political regimes, the Internet and mobile communications are increasingly used in every aspect of life. Yet the analytical frames used to understand the impact of digital media on Asia predominantly originate from the Global North, neither rooted in Asia's rich philosophical traditions, nor reflective of the sociocultural practices of this dynamic region. This volume examines digital phenomena and its impact on Asia by drawing on specifically Asian perspectives. Contributors apply a variety of Asian theoretical frameworks including guanxi, face, qing, dharma and karma. With chapters focusing on emerging digital trends in China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Korea, Philippines, Singapore, and Taiwan, the book presents compelling and diverse research on identity and selfhood, spirituality, social networking, corporate image, and national identity as shaped by and articulated through digital communication platforms.

This volume captures the domestication of mobile communication technologies by families in Asia, and its implications for family interactions and relationships. It showcases research on families across a spectrum of socio-economic profiles, from both rural and urban areas, offering insights on children, adolescents, adults, and the elderly. While mobile communication diffuses through Asia at a blistering pace, families in the region are also experiencing significant changes in light of unprecedented economic growth, globalisation, urbanisation and demographic shifts. Asia is therefore at the crossroads of technological transformation and social change. This book analyses the interactions of these two contemporaneous trends from the perspective of the family, covering a range of family types including nuclear, multi-generational, transnational, and multi-local, spanning the continuum from the media-rich to the media have-less.

In Asia, amidst its varied levels of economic development and diverse cultural traditions and political regimes, the Internet and mobile communications are increasingly used in every aspect of life. Yet the analytical frames used to understand the impact of digital media on Asia predominantly originate from the Global North, neither rooted in Asia's rich philosophical traditions, nor reflective of the sociocultural practices of this dynamic region. This volume examines digital phenomena and its impact on Asia by drawing on specifically Asian perspectives. Contributors apply a variety of Asian theoretical frameworks including guanxi, face, qing, dharma and karma. With chapters focusing on emerging digital trends in China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Korea, Philippines, Singapore, and Taiwan, the book presents compelling and diverse research on identity and selfhood, spirituality, social networking, corporate image, and national identity as shaped by and articulated through digital communication platforms.

Whether members of the family are headed to school or work, smartphones accompany family members throughout the day. The growing sophistication of mobile communication has unleashed a proliferation of apps, channels, and platforms that link parents to their children and the key institutions in their lives. While parents may feel empowered by their ability to provide their children assistance with a click on their smartphone, they may also feel pressured and overwhelmed by this need to always be on call for their children. This book focuses on the phenomenon of transcendent parenting, where parents actively use technology to go beyond traditional, physical practices of parenting. In drawing on the experiences of intensely digitally-connected families in Singapore to tell a global story, Sun Sun Lim argues how transcendent parenting can embody and convey, intentionally or not, the parenting priorities in these households. Chapters outline how parents exploit mobile connectivity to transcend the physical distance between themselves and their children, the online and offline social interaction environments, and the timelessness of seemingly ceaseless parenting. Transcendent Parenting further explores how mobile communication allows parents to be more involved than ever in their children's lives, leaving readers to question whether or not parents have become too involved as a result. With its clear discussions of the effects of transcendent parenting on parents' wellbeing and children's personal development, Transcendent Parenting will appeal to a broad audience of readers, from scholars, educators and policy makers to parents and young people across the globe.