The thing that will have the bigger impact is the aging of people. However the family takes shape, Trepper and other experts know that technology will dramatically change the way all people communicate, and how their relationships develop. You don't have that social interaction with some of these things. The question is how will that affect the family. While in many ways technology diminishes human contact, in other ways it allows more options for communicating with others.
Technology is great.
I would lose out on a lot of communication if I didn't have access to e-mail. Kraly, a Notre Dame University junior, regularly logs onto her e-mail account to talk to her friends at other schools, including one who is studying abroad in Australia. In the future, most people will be able to actually see the people they are talking to electronically and by telephone. Such use of electronic communication is going to continue to increase in the next century, experts say. And, in many ways, it will change the traditional sense people have of community.