Lachance, Jocelyn
Making the child’s world available in a connected world
- 2021.
62
In just a few years, ICTs have transformed how we all relate to experiences of separation. The present article shows meanwhile that the possibility offered parents to contact their children using communication tools cannot explain their desire to maintain links despite the distance. By replacing their uses in the context of late modernity, it will be seen that this trend can be understood as the expression of what sociologist Hartmut Rosa describes as being the main characteristic of contemporary societies, that of making the world available. It then becomes clear that analysis of the “connected family” cannot dispense with an examination of the social norms that traverse societies. This helps to avoid the trap of attributing to the ICTs the origin of behaviours that can be better explained in a more general social context.