Meet the Laffey family of Billerica, MA., a middle-class suburb northwest of Boston. The parents, Kevin and Shelly, both work. Their two teenaged children, Chris and Nicki, attend local high schools. Increasingly, all four rely on their screened devices - televisions, computers, cellphones - to communicate and consume information, to manage work-related data, to be educated, entertained, and so on. Like millions of Americans, the Laffeys are living in a Screen Society, for better or worse. A portrait of one family’s screen usage, the first in an occasional series called Living With Screens, running year-long in the Boston Globe.

Comments

nhhiker

04/15/2012 06:43 AM

For God's sake, people!! Get outdoors, take a walk, breath some fresh air. Escape your world of pixels and particle board.

robstruction

04/15/2012 11:25 AM

No surprises in this article the phenomena is all around us. A more interesting line of inquiry would be a look into the tremendous amount of money that people are spending on screen driven communication and entertainment. Between the ongoing acquisition of the best devices and monthly fees Americans are pouring billions down this electronic rabbit hole. Sadly it is often those who can least afford it that are sending thousands a year to telecom companies and tech giants.