Introduction to Sociology

Technology and Transnational Family Networks: Instant Messaging Apps

What is the Function of Messaging Apps?

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  How does a teenager living in New York keep in regular touch with her cousins who live in California, Germany, Spain, Uruguay, Brazil, and Morocco? How do parents who migrate to the United States talk to their children living in Mexico, Ecuador, or El Salvador? The answer: instant messaging platforms! 
  
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  With increased global migration flows in recent decades, families are more likely than ever to be split across national borders – resulting in transnational family networks that need to adapt to whatever means of communication are available
  
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  Thankfully, instant messaging apps – WhatsApp, WeChat, FB Messenger, Viber, Slack, Signal – provide platforms for within-family communication across boundaries, whether those be geographical, legal, or social boundaries
  
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  According to WhatsApp (2020, https://www.whatsapp.com/about/), more than 2 billion people (!!!!) in more than 180 countries use their free app 
  
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  Technology saw a demand for transnational communication, and instant messaging apps fill the function of facilitating this type of communication for billions of people around the world
  

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  12% have been in a committed relationship or married someone they met through an app/online site – but this proportion is noticeable larger among the LGB population and among younger groups
  
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  These sites and applications further serve to illustrate how culture influences the functionality and role of technology: these sites and apps are increasingly inclusive [and sometimes exclusive] in terms of genders and sexualities, reflecting larger societal changes
  

Slide 7

To Review . . .

What does technology NOT do for society, based on the previous discussion? 

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  Facilitates professional networks
  
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  It provides an alternative form of finding romantic partners
  
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  It allows for transnational communication between family members
  
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  It makes us have better social skills