Duke Nukem 3D combines bloody imageries with porn shop visits. However, it also has a `parental lock' that can be used to ®lter out some of its violent and ...
British Journal of Guidance & Counselling, Vol. 28, No. 3, 2000
Internet and computer technology hazards: perspectives for family counselling JO ANN ORAVEC College of Business and Economics, 800 West Main, University of Wisconsin± Whitewater, Whitewater, WI 53190, USA
Families are increasingly integrating computing technologies into their everyday activities, expanding the range of external in¯ uence upon them. For many families, basic notions of `home` are undergoing shifts as large-scale cultural and economic changes occur that are related to the `Information age’ and as family members spend more time on the Internet and with advanced communications technologies. The Internet is also providing the backdrop for a number of critical family problems, as many counsellors are discovering in their therapy efforts. This article explores the social construction of the various computer hazards that households are encountering, such as computer addiction and children’ s access to on-line pornography. For example, some parents label deep-seated family issues as `technological’ problems because of the involvement of the computer, while others overlook or deny the possible in¯ uences of technologies. The article discusses these issues in terms of constructivist counselling perspectives that are sensitive to cultural and environmental contexts. It outlines some of the speci® c strategies for countering these problems that counsellors can utilise with their clients (such as solution-focused approaches). It also discusses how counsellors can help household heads to de® ne and deal with their rapidly changing responsibilities in these new realms. ABSTRACT
Introduction The advent of the computer and the Internet has had a wide variety of in¯ uences upon the character of various institutions and human associations, from large-scale businesses to small groups. Most notably, these technologies are becoming linked with some basic changes in individuals’ constructions of `home’ and the domestic realm (Gumpert & Drucker, 1998; Hampton & Wellman, 1999; Hill & Hawkins, 1996; Papert, 1996), changes that are having profound impacts on the setting in which children are raised and adults obtain support and understanding. As families perform important educational and community activities on-line and as more family members telecommute, the functions of the home and its place in family interaction are undergoing various shifts. Some of the most important changes for family life have been unsettling ones, as counsellors are discovering; many families are perceiving new dangers from within their con® nes as they integrate computing into their day-to-day activities. Children can come upon predators in their on-line interacISSN 0306± 9885 (print) ISSN 1469-3534 (online) /00/030309± 16 Ó
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tions, adolescents may view terrorist or hate group material, and family ® nancial records may be exposed to outsiders. Efforts to defend the home increasingly involve the defence of the household’ s information and communications resources, activities that can be problematic in terms of everyday family functioning. This article explores the complex changes that households are undergoing in relation to these perceived hazards and intrusions. The hazards include those related to content (the kinds of materials available on-line) and others that are best classi® ed in terms of the process of using computers (such as information overload and computer dependence). The article outlines approaches to these problems that are constructivist and are sensitive to cultural and environmental contexts (Rigazio-Digilio et al., 1997; Whiteley, 1999), in conjunction with some `solution-focused’ counselling strategies (primarily from the vantage point of the US counselling setting). It also examines the construction of family and parental responsibility in the realm of information technology, as household heads and other family members attempt to understand their changing roles in these contexts. Counsellors are becoming involved in computer-related issues for a variety of reasons; computing technology is a major contextual factor that is currently in¯ uencing the roles of individuals and groups in society, even in intimate settings (Whiteley, 1999). Many of the hazards described in this article re¯ ect larger concerns about the family as a social unit, concerns that have intensi® ed as a wide spectrum of technological and related economic and social pressures have affected household functioning. For example, matters involving the availability of Internet pornography to adolescents are indeed computer issues, but they are also linked to parents’ ability to control the dissemination of information inside the con® nes of the home. Counsellors can work with families to map through narrative construction their perceptions of these situations as well as possible spheres of action. They can explore through contextual analyses to what extent the disruptions involved are related to the presence of a new technology in the home and to what extent they are linked more closely to larger family concerns or to other, possibly related, contextual factors (such as socio-economic ones). Through analyses of the metaphors and expressions that clients use to characterise technology in relation to their homelife, counsellors along with clients can begin to distinguish how clients perceive the technologies and their effects upon the homeÐ either as invaders, strangers, or threats, or (alternatively) as companions or useful tools. Through constructivist approaches, counsellors can help families reframe their situations when needed: if clients focus on the technology rather than viewing their problems in the context of the family as a unit, they can miss important aspects of their circumstances. Alternatively, if they overlook the technological and environmental contexts of their situations in their endeavours to characterise their problems solely in terms of their interpersonal relationships, they can miss critical variables that could lend insight and play vital roles in problem solving. There are a variety of constructivist approaches to counselling (McAuliffe & Eriksen, 1999), which have some common themes. Recognition of context plays a large role in these approaches, which are especially sensitive to environmental nuances as well as large-scale cultural shifts. Although individuals are indeed heavily in¯ uenced by their environments,
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they need not become `victims’ of them, since their sense-making abilities give them the means to reframe situations (Kegan, 1994); all humans are active creators of experience and meaning. Constructivist approaches are generally based on the perspective that the client and counsellor are co-narrators, with the narratives each creates having a role in producing joint outcomes (Monk et al., 1997). In the process of constructing narratives, counsellors and clients together can obtain the insights needed to design the course of treatment and select among various intervention strategies (Lynch, 1997; White & Epston, 1990). They can also help clients place their problems in new perspectives. This is often best accomplished by describing how the problem framings and solutions that may have served useful purposes in previous eras may be less useful in the clients’ current environment, and working with clients to develop new and more appropriate ones. Changes in constructs of home and parental responsibility Some observers of the changes that are related to the Internet and computing have heralded new models of the homeÐ from the `electronic cottage’ (Craumer & Marshall, 1997; Tof¯ er, 1980) in which work, play, and civic activities are performed, to the `wired home’ (Papert, 1996; Gates, 1999) which serves as the hub of complex computer gear that links household members in their disparate and often geographically dispersed activities. Many of the important changes in home life related to technologies are more subtle, though no less in¯ uential. For example, the notion of `neighbour’ is shifting for many families; the individuals who are most capable and willing to assist them in handling dif® cult situations may not be those who are physically proximate but those with whom they have established on-line relationships. Families that restrict their de® nition of neighbour to those with whom they can interact face-to-face may thus deprive themselves of vital interpersonal resources. Families are also receiving more of the assistance they need for their healthy functioning through the Internet, either through websites (Elliott, 1999), support groups (Galegher & Sproull, 1998), or on-line counselling (Frame, 1998). Yet another change in home life relates to family privacy, which is often considered a necessity for families in maintaining their autonomy (Berardo, 1998). Families could once establish many important forms of informational privacy through fences, walls, and other visual barriers (Newell, 1995). Today, however, information about households is held in hundreds of databanks, and a good share of families’ efforts to secure their privacy must thus be shifted to the realm of information technology. Crimes such as `hacking’ and `identity theft’ are causing concern as individuals wonder who has access to family ® nancial and medical records (Saunders & Zucker, 1999). Children, for whom privacy plays special roles in development (McKinney, 1998), are becoming targets for marketers as information about family operations is collected through their participation in on-line surveys and other Internet activities (Pasnik, 1997). Household heads who attempt to secure their families’ privacy through shutting off contact with the Internet and other aspects of information technology could ® nd that they are severing their families from needed resources.
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Other in¯ uences of computers and the Internet in the home include the alteration of the family’s allocation of time and attention (Gumpert & Drucker, 1998; Hughes et al., 1999; Lindlof, 1992) and the introduction of a number of workplace elements into the domestic sphere (as will be discussed later). Parks & Roberts (1998) and L’Abate (1999) explore the quality of the interpersonal relationships that family members are building on-line with each other, asserting that the Internet can serve as a supportive context for the formation of such relationships. Carlson et al. (1999) state that the `rules of life have been dramatically transformed by technology’ , with increasing amounts of face-to-face family interaction displaced by forms of computer-mediated communication. As shopping, banking, and other everyday activities are being conducted on-line, the functions of home and neighbourhood are changing; families are also facing many new forms of fraud (Parsons, 1998). There is some disagreement as to what an `information society’ constitutes (Williams, 1988), but it is clear that some major transitions in occupational and civic life are accompanying these domestic alterations, with many individuals obtaining employment in rapidly changing information-based ® elds where their previously acquired skills may be considered out-of-date. Although many of these changes in home and occupational life are seen as positive by counsellors and clients, they can work in conjunction to produce volatile social conditions that can be disorienting to those who seek in everyday settings a sense of stability and a refuge from the turbulence of societal change. In the ideal shared by many cultures, a major function of the home is to provide a sense of `safe haven’ and security, a place where residents can regroup from the pressures of the outside world. Lasch (1977) and Tuan (1982) characterise the home as buffering its residents from the public sphere. In this formulation, within the private realm of the home there is a world set apart from the external world, characterised by forms of domestic order (Berger & Kellner, 1970; Gergen, 1992; Holstein & Gubrium, 1995). This perspective (however attractive) overlooks the myriad of in¯ uences that serve to shape the political and social environments of homes as well as affect their everyday operations, including governmental and corporate policies concerning health and welfare bene® ts along with the requirements of educational institutions (Casanova, 1996; Skolnick, 1979). The `private’ family con® nes can thus be said to be `deprivatised’ by these in¯ uences (Wiley, 1985), a situation lamented by those who support the self-determination of the family (Lasch, 1977). Noch (1998), however, argues that such encroachments are inevitable in an interconnected, modern society. The family is, in effect, `an increasingly rationalized, public accomplishment’ (Holstein & Gubrium, 1995). With larger public roles come broader levels of responsibility. Through rhetoric and legal mandate, institutions and the media impose a large range of oftencon¯ icting roles on parents and household headsÐ for example, concerning children’ s well-being, safety, and readiness for school (McCaslin & Infanti, 1998; Storm, 1995). Counsellors have often worked with parents and heads of households to explore their perceptions of their responsibilities, clarify them, and subsequently engage in constructive problem solving within various realms, such as their children’ s education and social development (Cox & Davis, 1999); they are now
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increasingly doing so within the realm of computers and information technology. To `accept responsibility’ is to attempt to understand and comply with the social norms that relate to one’ s perceived roles (Selznick, 1992). However, computing is changing at a rapid pace, and the roles of individuals and families in regard to it have not yet stabilised. Many families are facing large-scale cultural changes related to the new technologies, with their social roles shifting to ones in which information concerns are larger aspects. Clients may be unclear as to what the changes in their home life speci® cally entail, although they may already be constructing narratives pertaining to their new responsibilities regarding information technology. They will also be receiving a variety of signals about their responsibilities and roles in these realms from educational institutions, workplaces, and the media, signals that counsellors can help them to decipher through analysis of narratives. Parents are often construed as having responsibility for realms over which they have only minimal control and incomplete understanding. For example, the parents of children who are in neonatal wards face a wide spectrum of pressures as they attempt to ascertain what their responsibilities are for their children’ s well-being in contrast with those of attending doctors, nurses, and hospital staff (Heimer & Staffen, 1998). They may have a debilitating sense that they are not entirely ful® lling those responsibilities when in fact they are doing everything they possibly can within the institution’ s structure. In a similar way, parents may feel that they are abrogating their responsibilities in taking care of their children when they allow them to attend schools or enter libraries in which there is un® ltered Internet access (and thus potential exposure to unwanted in¯ uences). Counsellors can work with parents along with the family as a unit to understand their perceived responsibilities, societal expectations, and possible spheres of action in these and similar contexts. Identifying and characterising computer hazards in the home One of the reasons that citizens are prodded to watch the news and scan various sources of information is to make sure that their homes are protected against external hazardsÐ from a menace in the neighbourhood to severe weather conditions. However, many potential hazards are now facing families while inside their homes as they utilise computer networking that are often more dif® cult to identify and mitigate (Rochlin, 1997). Viruses and security breaches by hackers also provide kinds of intrusion that present potential disturbances to the household, albeit information-based ones. These technological hazards can emerge quickly in the public consciousness: for example, the widely publicised year 2000 (Y2K) problem brought a number of new and confusing concerns (and a bevy of well-advertised `solutions’ ) as families struggled to understand its implications for their safety and well-being (Jones, 1998). Some individuals contended that the problem would result in catastrophe both at personal and societal levels, leading to increased anxiety and confusion (Anderson, 1999). The hazards households face can include content-related ones as well as those that relate more speci® cally to process (such as those described in the next section). An example of the former involves the information on the Internet related to
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violence and bomb-making. Widespread public concern about the Internet and electronic bulletin boards in the mid-1990s was triggered by the disclosure that information about bomb-making was readily available on them. For example, in the US the 1995 bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City focused attention on terrorist activities and on the Internet as a channel for subversive information; the April 1999 school shooting in Littleton, Colorado served to intensify this interest. The same information about bomb-making that is found on the Internet is indeed readily obtainable in public libraries, but the fact that it can be accessed from within the home via network connections has generated considerable public commentary and concern. Children can obtain this information while working quietly in their rooms, apparently being safe and obedient. Popular press literature conveyed a sense of disquiet: for example, the term `TerrorNet’ was applied to the Internet (Kim & Richter, 1995). Another article related in detail the anguish of parents whose child Michael built a smoke bomb with information reportedly gleaned from the Internet (Johnson, 1997). These parents temporarily put restrictions on his computer usage, then backed down because `We could not afford to let Michael be computer-illiterate’ (p. 40). The ready availability of pornography on the Internet (especially child pornography) has also been a great content-related concern, resulting in a number of social alarms and legislative initiatives world-wide. However, the quality of research about the Internet’ s level of saturation with pornographic materials has been spotty at best. In 1995, seemingly high estimates of the amount of pornography on the Internet from Marty Rimm’s study from Carnegie Mellon University received a great deal of public discussion (Rimm, 1995). Rimm’ s study later met with considerable controversy as his methods were shown to have some questionable assumptions (Simon, 1998). Many researchers are reluctant to approach these matters today, with the basic issue of the haziness of the notion of `pornography’ as one of the reasons. Yet another concern involves the potential for contact with child predators. Many Internet users devise alternative identities (men pretend to be women, and vice versa). Children are subsequently being warnedÐ by Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, for example, in a 4 June 1997 cable television broadcast in the USÐ that the persons they are conversing with on-line may not be 12-year-old girls (even if they claim they are). There have been strong and sustained pressures for technological solutions to the problem of children accessing Internet materials and making contacts that parents disapprove of. SurfWatch, Net Nanny and a host of comparable systems allow parents to restrict the areas of the Internet that their children can access. Some video games are also being provided with options that provide parental controls: Duke Nukem 3D combines bloody imageries with porn shop visits. However, it also has a `parental lock’ that can be used to ® lter out some of its violent and sexually charged aspects (Mannes, 1996). A variety of special search engines on the Internet have been designed to access a subset of the Internet that excludes potentially disturbing materials. For example, the search engine OneKey assures parents that it is `kid safe’ , providing links to only the sites that staff members have speci® cally certi® ed are suitable for unattended use by minor children. To prevent some kinds
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of problems relating to children contacting outsiders, a number of on-line services thus provide the option of automatically forwarding children’ s electronic mail and chat room messages to parents, assuming, indeed, that the children are using the accounts assigned to them to send these messages. Parents may be able to spot clues to identity falsi® cation, thus heading off some potential disasters. Distribution and subsequent application of some parental control technologies has not prevented many kinds of content-related problems from occurring in households, however. Filters and related tools are not failsafe, and new kinds of content concerns emerge periodically (such as new websites designed by `hate groups’ and other organisations that promote intolerance). Parents frequently receive advice from various individuals and organisations about how to frame and confront the problems they encounter, that is, adding to the deluge of oftencon¯ icting information that they process related to computing concerns. For example, some observers of home computing developments claim that use of Internet monitoring tools and special search engines should be coupled with explicit family rules for access to the net (Givens, 1999). Parents are also being encouraged to establish rules for engagement of family members with those outsiders who were ® rst contacted via computer networks: `while online, a child might provide information or arrange an encounter that would risk his or her safety or the safety of other family members’ (National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, 1994, p. 5). The Center recommends that parents work to reduce the risks to children by `spend[ing] time with your children while they’ re online’ (p. 7). Computer technology pioneer Seymour Papert (1996) advises households to foster a `family culture of trust and truthfulness’ (p. 76) which will help the family deal more straightforwardly with the potential dangers from undesirable Internet contacts. Other experts openly question the value of computer technology and recommend (instead of installing ® lters and preventive measures) that parents re-examine their apparent need to bring computing into their homes and incorporate it into their children’ s educations (Noble, 1996; Stoll, 1996, 1999). Advice from less distinguished (and often less helpful) sources is also abounding in various forums, including on-line rumours that pertain to the kind and extent of speci® c hazards. Some on-line hearsay has already caused disruption both in households and commercial organisations as individuals protect themselves against various rumoured threats (Sawyer, 1999). Many pieces of advice may indeed be valuable, but others may project that parents have skills and resources that they do not currently have or make other faulty assumptions. Counsellors can work with clients to learn how to interpret the various recommendations they receive concerning these matters, analysing them in the context of the clients’ overall situations and resources. Solution-focused approaches to information overload and computer dependence Along with the problems just mentioned, there are realms of emerging social and personal problems involved in computer usage that are more diffuse and dif® cult to characterise, and often relate to the process of using computers rather than speci® c
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content delivered. Some new computer users apparently suffer from forms of `information overload’ , especially those who are bringing computers and the Internet into their homes who have not had a great deal of prior exposure to them. Although information overload has been labelled as a `myth’ (Tidline, 1999), a number of academicians, social critics, and political ® gures have commented on the deleterious effects of an overabundance of information (see Postman, 1992; Roszak, 1994; Tof¯ er, 1970). Some have even associated this bombardment with physical illness (Educom, 1997). Research has shown that information overload affects decision making processes negatively (Huang & Lin, 1999). Many households are often slow to adopt measures against information overload largely because they are used to conditions in which information is a scarce entity, one that must be hoarded rather than weeded out or even de¯ ected. Until recent years, many teaching practices reinforced these assumptions, stressing memorisation over the sifting and ® ltering processes needed to handle streams of data and choice situations. The notion of self as an autonomous and rational decision maker that is capable in itself of processing and analysing all of the information needed to solve home and workplace problems is still popular, though somewhat problematic (Simon, 1997). This educational training and self-perspective leaves many individuals ill-equipped to confront the surfeits of information they face in the advent of the Internet and computing technology and the wide range of choice situations they present. Counsellors can help explore with clients the possibility that various family and personal conditions may be related to an overabundance of information and choice options, a situation that is linked to the widespread societal changes associated with the advent of computer networking. They can work with clients to ® nd ways of making decisions and solving problems with recognition of their own limited rationality and information processing power. At the same time that they are exploring certain human limitations, counsellors can also use `solutionfocused’ and future-oriented approaches that emphasise the speci® c strengths and skills that clients have already brought to bear in various kinds of problem situations (Juhnke & Coker, 1997), some of which may be applicable in facing these increasing levels of information and choice possibilities. Solution-focused approaches stem from the work of Erikson, who used hypnosis and other techniques to draw successful solutions from clients (de Shazer, 1985; Erikson, 1963). These approaches focus on successful resolutions rather than primarily on problems, using purposeful questioning and other techniques to help clients identify what they are already doing competently and working toward transferring these solutions to other arenas if possible. Clients can thus gain a more realistic sense of what is feasible within their current situations, however they may have changed from those in the past (Bubenzer & West, 1993). As well as information overload, there are yet other computer-related hazards that are currently being identi® ed and labelled: for example, writers have warned computer users of such potential problems as isolation and despair from devoting too much time to on-line pursuits (Postman, 1992; Stoll, 1996). A study conducted at Carnegie Mellon links high levels of Internet usage with depression (Kraut et al., 1998). Young (1996, 1998) writes of `Internet addiction’ among both adolescents
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and adults, a condition that apparently affects some novice users as well as those more versed in the technology. Related problems are affecting children: the journal Clinical Pediatrics provides the assertion that the Internet can be a `time waster’ and `displace too much of a child’s time at the expense of other important activities’ (Izenberg & Lieberman, 1998, p. 397). The notion of `computer addiction’ has yet to be fully substantiated in the medical literature; it is clear, however, that many families have suffered as one or more members spend large amounts of time on-line in a manner that displaces essential life activities. Problems with gambling on the Internet are already becoming critical for some families (Pasternak, 1997), with the prospect of transforming living rooms into casinos. Participants may encounter emotional as well as ® nancial dif® culties in their efforts to display their mastery, test their luck, or just obtain diversion in their home environments (Hayes, 1999). However, after dependence problems have been identi® ed it is unclear as to which form of treatment would be most bene® cial. A potentially useful strategy here is the solution-focused approach in which clients relate the various skills they have acquired in other areas of their lives to the realm of computing technology. Clients who have successfully quit smoking or lost weight, for example, have resources that can possibly be transferred to the relatively new problem of computer dependence. Individuals are confronting the hazards described in this article in their workplaces as well as their homes; the manner in which the hazards are construed and handled in the workplace often migrates to the home environment. Information technology notions such as `performing backups’ and ergonomic concepts involving the relationships between individuals and technology are becoming a part of everyday domestic discourse as people seek solutions to everyday computing problems (Sellars, 1995; Tenner, 1996). In general, the introduction of computing into the home is resulting in an erosion of the boundaries between home and work life (Hughes et al., 1999), which can result in various tensions. For example, emphases on ef® ciency that stem from workplace methods can cause problems in home settings where mutual consideration and accommodation are needed. Counsellors can work with clients to determine the extent to which these workplace strategies and processes have displaced those that are possibly better suited to the domestic realm. Implications for practitioners Counsellors have often been called to help households deal with the effects of large-scale social phenomena. Just as a `drug scourge’ among the middle class was characterised and labelled in past decades by the news media and politicians (Kleinman, 1992), household problems that include viruses, hackers, and Internet addiction have been identi® ed in the 1990s. In the 1980s, `wars on drugs’ were declared in many nations and an assortment of anti-drug strategies for the home were devised by policy makers and experts. Many parents were confused by the situation and sought advice as to how to handle it. News stories and interviews with experts outlined the perils parents faced from within their own households, ones about which they may not previously have been aware. Parents were advised to
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watch their children for signs of drug use, and some purchased kits to help them analyse whether their children were indeed using drugs. Similarly, the hazards parents face from within the home today involving children’s access to pornographic and terrorist materials and possible contact with sexual predators are being constructed in a complex process that involves the efforts of news media as well as commercial and political institutions. Counsellors can assist the family in placing these dif® cult problems in a new light by putting the focus on the entire family system rather than on the technology in isolation or on the often-sensationalistic media characterisations of these issues, just as do many family counsellors who deal with drug-related matters (Morgan, 1998; Nardi, 1981). For example, adolescents may be accessing pornography on the Internet in part as a means of demonstrating to family members that they are reaching adulthood (a kind of `rite of passage’). Technological changes are occurring at a rapid pace, and parents’ general confusion and lack of knowledge about them may intensify their dif® culties. Counsellors can help clients to address their concerns without directly providing them with computer technology assistance. For example, creating and reviewing time logs of family members’ computer usage is a beginning step in understanding and resolving problems such as computer addiction and information overload; these logs expose many patterns and trends that may not immediately be apparent. Construction of these logs can be coupled with strategies that help individuals map the problems they face along with solution-focused approaches in which clients identify and subsequently draw from their prior set of competencies and resources. Along with family therapy strategies, counsellors can also refer their clients to various Internet support groups (some of which are led by professional counsellors) in which parents discuss their problems and share their solutions (Galegher & Sproull, 1998). Whether or not parents receive speci® c help from these groups, they can obtain a sense that they are not alone in dealing with these issues. With the assistance of counsellors, clients can also examine the narratives that they encounter pertaining to various computer technology hazards and identify their speci® c sources. For example, some commercial organisations are trying to market computer-related products (such as ® lters for Internet content) by attempting to de® ne new responsibilities for parents in their advertising. Counsellors can also work to assist families that are deciding on whether to engage in `teleworking’ or on-line education ventures, or in other ways escalate the level of computer and technology usage in the home (Hill & Hawkins, 1996). These decisions are being made with increasing frequency. For example, electronic security apparatus, home theatres, and other advanced consumer technologies are becoming more widely available. In general, families are examining whether or not the hazards related to computing cancel out the possible gains the technologies afford. The management of home life involves the occasional introduction of outside in¯ uences to the home sphere, both positive and negative; households often accept some level of perceived nuisance for possible gainsÐ from their efforts to care for a set of puppies, for example, to engaging in formidable how-to projects (Jennings, 1997). Counsellors can assist families to acquire effective decision making strategies for these and related decisions. In a solution-focused manner, families can examine
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some of the resources and skills they have acquired in comparable situations and explore whether and how these are suited for the new computer technology challenges that they may accept. The responses of various families to these issues are likely to be varied; research shows that families apparently have a wide range of kinds of responses to home computing in general, which are not yet easily predictable (Watt & White, 1999). For example, many counsellors are likely to be encountering families that are relatively new to computing and are confronting certain computer technology hazards for the ® rst time; these families may have special problems in articulating their concerns. The relationships between families and computing technologies are also likely to be dynamic as a wide gamut of educational and economic variables affect them and as societal pressures change. Counsellors thus have considerable challenges in working with families both on their immediate responses to computerrelated concerns as well as on the deep-seated family issues that may be related to or re¯ ected in the computer hazards they encounter. In their efforts, counsellors can gain from attempting to understand their own perspectives toward the Internet and computing. For counsellors who are involved in on-line counselling with families, this is especially important because computing comprises part of the context of the counselling relationship (McLeod & Machin, 1998), and as such can affect its character (Oravec, 1996). Some conclusions and re¯ ections The psychological importance and cultural signi® cance of the home are hard to overestimate; the home provides the setting for much of children’s socialisation and plays a major role in maintaining individuals ’ well-being throughout the course of life. A number of aspects of family life are being reconstructed in the advent of the introduction of the Internet and computer technology into our everyday existences. Parents and heads of households generally consider the defence of the home as a primary responsibility; many of them are now attempting to defend their households’ informational spheres, although the speci® c strategies they are currently using may be more applicable to a pre-Internet era. For example, the neighbours that can provide them with assistance may be on-line rather than next door. Counsellors can work with families to recognise the large-scale cultural and social changes that are related to the speci® c computer technology hazards they face, as well as to be vigilant for the other kinds of changes they may face in the future. With narrative therapy approaches in a constructivist perspective, counsellors can assist clients to explore and more clearly identify their responsibilities in the context of the speci® c problems associated with computer technology, matters that can often trigger anxiety. Counsellors have often dealt with issues involving responsibility and social role, helping individuals obtain a clearer picture of what they and others perceive their responsibilities to be in efforts towards personal understanding and the creation of meaning. Counsellors can help household heads understand computing technology hazards as being part of a large range of external in¯ uences that they must identify and deal with in the course of maintaining a home.
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Counsellors can guide clients in re¯ ecting on their narratives of frustration and bewilderment concerning their responsibilities with the new technologies and work towards formulating ones that will more effectively lead to solutions. As families use computers for everyday communications and co-ordination, they face issues of whether computers can convey the intimacy needed for healthy family interaction. Many parents and household heads are also dealing with issues of control as aspects of home life change in the advent of everyday computer usage, particularly as they relate to overall family interaction patterns and the behaviour of children. Counsellors who have had long-standing relationships with particular families can notice shifts in the character of control and other issues before and after the arrival of a personal computer in the home; counsellors who are working with new clients may be able to identify and begin to explore such concerns in the beginning stages of client narrative construction. Household heads often have to work hard to bring computer technology and Internet access into the home, and may thus experience some confusion if not regret when they are faced with complex issues concerning computer hazards. In contrast, parents who bought encyclopaedias for their children in the 1950s and 1960s did so with the notion that they were supplementing their children’ s educations, but they generally did not encounter negative side-effects from their actions (except for the loss of shelf space in their home libraries). Parents who bring Internet access into their homes today are encountering a wide range of problems that the parents of the previous generation did not have to face. Often, the problems are only partly de® ned and solutions to the problems are seemingly unavailable. The problems have also coupled home activities more tightly with workplace procedures, as parents bring `solutions’ for these hazards from their workplaces into their homes. In the course of counselling, families as a unit can gain a better sense of their situations in the context of the large-scale cultural and economic changes that they and other households are facing, as well as explore potential solutions. Few families will have the option of avoiding home computer use entirely as a strategy for resolving these matters. Computer technology (and high technology in general) has taken on strong symbolic as well as practical values in many industrialised nations (Henderson, 1998). Even if they are indeed concerned about various computing hazards, many families are reluctant to eschew home computers and other technological equipment entirely in order to avoid their side-effects. A growing number of families are bringing computers into their homes by necessity; for example, some family members are obligated to telework by the very nature of their occupations, or just bring computer work home with them at nights. The strong in¯ uences of computer technologyÐ and the emergence of new varieties of domestic hazardsÐ are likely to continue as computing technology makes further inroads into households. For example, in the near future a substantial number of households will have `smart home’ technologies such as security systems and environmental controls that can connect the home to external computer networks and can thus increase its surveillance by outsiders. As many counsellors use on-line counselling as a mode for interacting with clients (King et al., 1998; Murphy & Mitchell, 1998) they are becoming more directly aware of their clients’
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problems in relation to computing as well. On-line counselling concerns are also triggering efforts in the counselling profession to explore the social implications of computer-mediated interaction in counselling contexts as well as in other settings (Oravec, 2000; Robson & Robson, 1998; Tait, 1999). As a consequence of the developments discussed in this article, we can also expect a stream of proposed social and political strategies for containing the hazards that computing can reportedly engender. Counsellors should be given considerable input in framing the issues and proposing large-scale solutions. Too often it has been technologists alone who have characterised the social changes that are associated with the Internet and computer networking. With their insights into home and family life, counsellors have a great deal to offer in these policy discussions.
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(Accepted 20 March 2000)
