Please join us for a talk given by Professor Michelle Janning of the Sociology department.

How might information and communication technology mediate, enhance, or distort meaning-making, communication, and relational processes in familial and romantic relationships? Do digital tools and processes used in intimate relationships challenge cultural values, or might they reinforce those values? How does a sociological exploration of technology showcase the interplay between individual agency, cultural values, and structural constraint? This lecture+discussion session poses questions that today’s relationship experiences necessitate, offering answers in the form of sociological research findings about how gender, class, immigration status, and generation may affect the following family and relationship experiences: 1) sexual and romantic cultural values across digital and paper love letter sending and saving practices (yes, this includes texts!); 2) the management of digital and analog photos as part of intensive parenting (for parents) and transitions to adulthood (for children); 3) the role of technology in parent-child attachment in families with divorced parents; 4) the use of technology in segmenting or integrating work and family selves; and 5) digitization as a way to preserve family memories in decluttering and downsizing efforts. Woven throughout will be questions about how artificial intelligence (AI) may affect intimate relationships.