Monday, February 11, 2013
Interview by Lon Woodbury
Family communication may very well be on the road to recovery. Kevin Strauss, CEO of Familyejournal.com, a free interactive website for families, discussed with Lon Woodbury on L.A. Talk Radio how he is using digital technology to enhance family communication.
About Kevin Strauss
After Kevin Strauss earned his Master of Engineering in Biomedical Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, he worked for National Institutes of Health for more than five years, where he assisted with research on positive behavior modification. His passion for psychology and family communication eventually led him to create the Family eJournal.
Getting Families Together Again
Strauss enjoyed the pleasure of household dinners at least 6 times a week when he was a boy in the 70’s. It was a time for people to interact with each other and discover exactly how the day was going. Today, one family meal a week is the norm. According to recent research, only 40 % of American households dine together. Instead, they get in touch with each other through the Internet.
Strauss described to Woodbury how numerous social aspects caused this breakdown in family interaction. Today, many families have dual-incomes and parents are not home much. Other families are single parent households following a separation or a divorce. Interacting with family members, especially parents communicating with teenagers, is a lot more challenging in this busy age. Family chats are now more focused on exchanging timetables and arranging errands than a real sharing of ideas and opinions.
The Family eJournal aspires to reduce this disconnect by using the Internet to re-establishing family communication through sharing text messages on an interactive website. Strauss’ goal is to improve family relationships by re-establishing trust and rapport through honest, open and guided written communication.
As an aid to stimulate conversations, the website asks family members questions that will encourage sharing thoughts and feelings. However, the purpose of the website is not to offer counseling, but simply to provide a convenient way to stimulate the user’s mind with a few well-thought questions. Those who sign up for the free membership can be rest-assured that neither the public nor the Family eJournal staff have access to user responses. Moreover, this interactive platform is accessible anytime, anywhere for anyone with Internet access.
Learning how to use this electronic diary is easy. Here is how it works:
A Family Leader registers for the eJournal making use of a safe registration page. He or she then includes family and relatives. Each receives a verification email containing their distinct and randomly generated password. In order to prevent a lot of duplicate registrations, the Family Leader is the only individual permitted to register other household members.
Additionally, the soul of the electronic journal is the Daily Experience Worksheet (DEW). This consists of a series of 4 easy questions. Answered by each household member, the questions are designed to offers insight into each person’s feelings about events in their lives.
Although the questions appear to be very basic and informal, the kind of questions that might actually be asked around a family dinner table, they were carefully developed by expert psychologists, social workers and family therapists to improve self-expression.
Final Thoughts
Strauss believes that this interactive online journal has the potential to transform how families communicate in the real world. It should help family members overcome their communication difficulties so that they feel comfortable enough to share their thoughts and feelings in person. Ironically, while the digital revolution played a role in disrupting family life, it may yet prove to be a way to improve family communication.
Find out more about Struggling Teens. Lon Woodbury has the recorded the entire interview on his weekly L.A. Talk Radio show for people to listen to at any time.
