Hi-tech Family Time

With new technology like cell phones, instant messaging and e-mail, families are able to multi-task and stay closely connected at the same time. Daniel Sieberg reports.

We are liveing in a hi-tech world, cellphones, the Internet video games, the list of gadgets that keep invading our lives keeps growing. You’d think that all those distractions would pull families apart but that may not be the case. Here’s CBS News Science and Technology Correspondent Daniel Sieberg

Maybe the best example of Ozzie and Harriet living in the digital age is the Romoser family from Seattle

Ha…my grandma just texted me. My dad, my grandma, my friend Katie …That was in like two minutes

Whether it’s 15-year-old Katie who defines multi-tasker, to a 13-year-old David in grows and in video games

Don’t…Don’t take it

To mom Tracy and dad Michael trying to keep track at the door .

I will text them or else I ‘ll ..

…get turners started and practice who trump on, so we know where they are at all times, which it’s really great.

Cellphones, e-mail, instant messaging, it’s part of nearly every busy family's life on the go. But those have technology actually bring them closer together.

It’s just different. I think we are just as close uh, but, but it’s in a different way

According to a new study, 25% said their family is closer today than when they were growing up

Thanks to all the new tech-gadgets that connect us, the Web and cellphones; just 11% said their families weren’t as close and 60% said the technologies made no difference

Maybe parents uh, need, need to feel like they can reach their kids more, you know, than our parents did.

The study also found that some families gather around the computer together, much like / ball games of the past

Experts like Jeffery Core who was not part of the study says while hi-tech communication lacks face-to-face time, it can still be meaningful

As far as it’s affecting family relationships in almost every meaningful way, it makes people feel better connected.

The Romosers who set limits for their kids worry about a larger impact

Here we are raising a generation of people that are you know texting on their phones and on line with chatting and all that and I wonder about the suicidal impact of their communication skills

In the meantime it’s back to being crawled in.

For The Early Show Daniel Sieberg CBS news, Los Angeles