Family scientists can face the challenge of effectively and efficiently recruiting normative samples of parents and families. Utilizing the Internet to recruit parents is a strategic way to find participants where they already are, enabling researchers to overcome many of the barriers to in-person recruitment. The present study was designed to compare three online recruitment strategies for recruiting parents: e-mail Listservs, Facebook, and Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk). Analyses revealed differences in the effectiveness and efficiency of data collection. In particular, MTurk resulted in the most demographically diverse sample, in a short period of time, with little cost. Listservs reached a large number of participants and resulted in a comparatively homogeneous sample. Facebook was not successful in recruiting a general sample of parents. Findings provide information that can help family researchers and practitioners be intentional about recruitment strategies and study design.

Social media has changed the ways we create and consume information, as well as the ways we interact with others. In the current review, findings from the existing literature on family and social media are considered, hypotheses about the ways social media is influencing families now and will do so in the future are proposed, and suggestions for future research to move the field forward are posited. More specifically, the existing literature on family relationships and technology use, as well as the theoretical perspectives that have been used, are overviewed. This review includes literature that emerged from searches using Academic Search Premier, a multidisciplinary database, and PsycINFO, a database focused on behavioral and social science research. Life course theory and a network approach are presented as two complementary perspectives that begin to provide a lens for understanding the complexity of technology use in family systems.Social media refers to a set of online tools that support social interaction between people. In practice, it is a catchall phrase describing the many online sociotechnical systems that have emerged in recent years, including services like discussion forums, blogs, microblogs (e.g.

Using expectancy-value theory as a framework, we examined the independent effects of both early parental and personal financial expectations and values on emerging adults’ later financial behaviors and financial well-being during the college-to-career transition. Data were collected at three time points over 8 years from a cohort of college-educated emerging adults ( N = 754 participants from a larger longitudinal study). The main finding showed that emerging adults’ personal expectations and values, but not parental values or expectations, predicted the financial behaviors they practiced in college; early parental expectations predicted financial well-being after leaving college. The financial behaviors practiced in college were associated with subsequent financial well-being. Finally, college financial behavior mediated the effect of early personal values on subsequent financial well-being, but not personal financial expectations. We discuss the findings in regard to facilitating emerging adults college-to-career transition.

We examined how family communication patterns (FCPs) are associated with frequency of adolescent–parent communication in person, over the phone, via text message, and via email. Adolescents (N = 195) aged 13 to 18 completed an online survey assessing FCPs and frequency of communication methods used with parents. The results revealed that both frequency and method of communication differed by general FCPs; adolescents in higher conformity families reported less frequent text messaging with mothers than adolescents in lower conformity families, and adolescents in higher conversation families (mothers only) and lower conformity families reported more frequent email communication with parents. Results set the stage for future research to further explore the processes and outcomes of adolescent–parent communication through communication technology.

Using longitudinal data and a cross-lagged, multigroup panel design, we examined unidirectional and bidirectional relationships between financial parenting and young adults' financial self-efficacy during the transition to adulthood. Because increasing college costs and student loan debt have changed the financial landscape of achieving higher education, we examined effects over time under 2 distinct conditions: a debt-financed college education and a debt-free college education. Analyses included the effects of 2 types of financial parenting: implicit role modeling and explicit communication. The sample was drawn from the Arizona Pathways to Life Success (APLUS) project, a cohort study of college students enrolled full time at a public university in the fall of 2007. Participants provided data at 3 time points across 5 years. The sample included 850 student loan borrowers and 800 nonborrowers. We found unidirectional patterns for both nonborrowers and borrowers depending on the type of financial parenting: Parents' explicit financial communication before college predicted higher levels of financial self-efficacy during freshman year for nonborrowers, whereas parents' implicit modeling before college predicted higher levels of financial self-efficacy during freshman year for borrowers. Financial selfefficacy led to less frequent explicit parental financial communication for nonborrowers after college but was associated with more frequent explicit parental financial communication during college for borrowers. Our findings suggest that explicit communication regarding basic finance principles is likely sufficient to support financial self-efficacy in a debt-free context, whereas observing parents' responsible financial behaviors may be beneficial for young adults who incur student loan debt.