Introducing: Our COVID-19 Asynchronous Remote Communities Family Groups
Family life as we know it has radically shifted in the United States as many parents have lost their jobs, began working remotely, or face increased risks as essential workers. Meanwhile, schools have faced unprecedented demands to convert curricula online and support tech access for children. Our University of Washington research team hit the ground running to learn from families’ greatest strategies, barriers, and desires with tech in the home. In this update, we are sharing an overview of our families participating in our study and a sneak preview of the methods we are using to understand technology’s role in this situation and opportunities for design. Here is a snapshot of the project:
From 322 nationwide screener responses, we enrolled 4 groups:
- Group A (the melting pot group): 13 actively participating parents who are racially diverse, have kids over a wide range of ages 3–13 years old, and family incomes that are across the spectrum.
- Group B (the single parents group): With 10 active parents, this group is majority middle class and racially diverse.
- Group C (limited resource parents): The majority of these 10 families come from family incomes in the lower half of our survey respondents. Several of the families are also limited with 1 or fewer wi-fi enabled devices in the home.
- Group D (Latinx family members): We wanted to enroll English Language Learners (ELL) families but were limited in our capacity to translate materials and conduct extensive, targeted outreach. So this group of 7 families was enrolled based on sharing that at least one member of the family identifies as Latinx.
Methods
We are applying the ARC (Asynchronous Remote Communities) method by moderating channels on Slack for each group of parents. This method is ideal for remote, distributed populations as well as marginalized communities. Affordances of ARC’s can include optional anonymity, community-building related to some aspect of a shared identity, and mutual learning as well as collaboration. Research participation looks like responding to lightweight, weekly prompts and posting pictures from activities. The thematic flow of our prompts has looked like:
Understanding participants’ needs → Refining problem statements and naming assets → Co-designing solutions
After parents made introductions and shared what advice they wish they received at the beginning of the pandemic, they completed a diary study about reflections from their tech use for schooling, working, socializing and beyond. Families went on to rank their top 3 from the most common problems we heard about. The results differed from group to group, but these were the most common issues that surfaced from the screener:
- Screen time (work/life balance, affect on kids from over-stimulation, overload of COVID information and notifications)
- Difficulties navigating multiple platforms: especially for school (too many different tools messages and poor implementation)
- Too many interruptions: difficulty finishing homework, work meetings, etc.
- Lack of in-person social connection: especially for children who are struggling
- Not enough devices per person in the household
- Privacy concerns with technology
And to (hopefully) experience some catharsis and play by writing love and break-up letters to technologies of their choice. Finally, families drew “information and resource maps” to reflect on their top sources of timely and relevant information as well as people, organizations, and support systems that they turn to in times of need:
What’s next?
Since the groups enrolled in staggering phases, Group A is the first to already begin the co-design process by brainstorming solutions for members of their families. Stay tuned to see what ideas, tips, and tricks families will create!
