Text messaging taps out a family-friendly result

— -- A family that texts together, stays together. Or at least it stays in touch better.

Today's families with minor children are much more likely than any other household types to have cellphones and use the Internet, a study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project reports today.

The phone survey of 2,252 adults, between Dec. 13, 2007, and Jan. 13, 2008, also shows that families use those technologies to stay in touch with each other throughout the day.

"It used to be in the old Dick and Jane days, husbands went off to work, wives went off to a different job or else stayed home … and the kids went off to school," says study co-author Barry Wellman, professor at the University of Toronto. "And not until 5:30, 6 o'clock did they ever connect."

But now husbands e-mail wives. Daughters call moms. Sons e-mail parents.

"There's a new kind of connectedness being built inside of families with these technologies," says Lee Rainey, director of the project.

When Jim Daly, an editor for a Web company who lives in Alameda, Calif., wanted to call his teenage daughter down to dinner, he called her on her cellphone.

He knew she'd answer because "text message and cellphone messages are much more important" to her, says Daly, 48.

Daly is in constant contact with his wife, a freelance editor who works from home, during the day via e-mail and cellphone.

So are millions of other Americans. According to the survey:

• About 89% of married (or partnered) parents with children own multiple cellphones.

• 66% have high-speed broadband Internet connections in their homes (compared with a national average of 52%).

• 70% of couples in which both partners have cellphones contact each other daily just to say hello, 64% contact each other to coordinate schedules, and 42% of parents contact their children daily using a cellphone.

When the Internet arose, some worried that it would pull families apart, Rainie said. But for perhaps the first time, this study indicates fairly definitely that technology is bringing them together by allowing them to have constant contact, Rainie says.