there was something in the news recently re. research on children's reaction to parent texting & I assume it must been Prof. Turkle's research as I can't find anything else!

Connecting with spouses and children in a world gone texting.
The New York Times recently reported on a study by Sherry Turkle who has been observing the effects of technology on parents and children for the past five years. She has found that feelings of jealousy, hurt and competition are common in many homes as children and spouses vie for attention that is being given to technology instead.

Children spoke about feeling hurt at mealtime, sports events or pickup time when they found parents more interested in their phones than in them.

"There's something so engrossing about the kind of interactions people do with screens that they wall out the world," she said. "I've talked to children who try to get their parents to stop texting while driving and they got resistance, 'Oh, just one, just one more quick one, honey.' It's like 'one more drink.'"


Stop texting, Dad! I'm talking to you Much of the concern about cellphones and instant messaging and Twitter has been focused on how children who incessantly use the technology are affected by it.
But parents' use of such technology - and its effect on their offspring - is now becoming an equal source of concern to some child-development researchers.

(full article is no longer available - tho comments are)