Carol J. Bruess – författare

Family Communication in the Age of Digital and Social Media is an innovative collection of contemporary data-driven research and theorizing about how digital and social media are affecting and changing nearly every aspect of family interaction over the lifespan. The research and thinking featured in the book reflects the intense growth of interest in families in the digital age. Chapters explore communication among couples, families, parents, adolescents, and emerging adults as their realities are created, impacted, changed, structured, improved, influenced and/or inhibited by cell phones, smartphones, personal desktop and laptop computers, MP3 players, e-tablets, e-readers, email, Facebook, photo sharing, Skype, Twitter, SnapChat, blogs, Instagram, and other emerging technologies. Each chapter significantly advances thinking about how digital media have become deeply embedded in the lives of families and couples, as well as how they are affecting the very ways we as twenty-first-century communicators see ourselves and, by extension, conceive of and behave in our most intimate and longest-lasting relationships.

Family Communication in the Age of Digital and Social Media is an innovative collection of contemporary data-driven research and theorizing about how digital and social media are affecting and changing nearly every aspect of family interaction over the lifespan. The research and thinking featured in the book reflects the intense growth of interest in families in the digital age. Chapters explore communication among couples, families, parents, adolescents, and emerging adults as their realities are created, impacted, changed, structured, improved, influenced and/or inhibited by cell phones, smartphones, personal desktop and laptop computers, MP3 players, e-tablets, e-readers, email, Facebook, photo sharing, Skype, Twitter, SnapChat, blogs, Instagram, and other emerging technologies. Each chapter significantly advances thinking about how digital media have become deeply embedded in the lives of families and couples, as well as how they are affecting the very ways we as twenty-first-century communicators see ourselves and, by extension, conceive of and behave in our most intimate and longest-lasting relationships.

In this charming little volume, more than 50 couples share their touching, clever, affectionate, and sometimes silly rituals of romance - it then goes on to explain how these loving gestures, private nicknames, and other forms of endearment help create the enduring bond between life-partners.Included among the endearing stories in "What Happy Couples Do" are: a woman who puts little lipstick kisses on notes, and surprises her partner by leaving them in unexpected places; a couple that have developed a secret code for telling each other "I love you" from across a crowded room; and, two elderly partners who always pause to kiss when crossing a bridge - a ritual commemorating their very first kiss.

In this charming book, more than 50 couples show how they kept the romance and passion in their marriages, following the birth of their children. The authors then provide additional commentary on how these couples' playful rituals help form the enduring bond between two life partners.