They're a voracious bunch are the Brobyns. The family can easily chew through 150 gigabytes of internet data a month.
The Christchurch family's downloading, streaming and surfing is far above the average for a New Zealand household.
According to the Commerce Commission's latest report into the country's telecommunications market released this week, the average household used 19GB of data per month in the year to June. That's almost double what we were using a year earlier.
Paul Brobyn said the family normally used about 30 to 50GB of data, but online gaming, Skpye calls and streaming Premier Football League matches could push usage up to the maximum 150GB given as part of their monthly home telecommunications plan.
Between Paul, his wife, Tasha, and children Rebecca, 15, and Mya, 10, the family had access to three smartphones, two laptops, a desktop computer, PlayStation and Xbox gaming consoles, an iPod and a tablet computer.
For the adults, all the technology and data available helped them stay entertained and in touch with family, but also meant they could be kept busy by work emails coming to their smartphones at all hours.
For the kids, the internet meant entertainment and socialising, but there were strict rules in place.
"Rebecca will pretty much have her phone attached to her hip, you don't know who's calling her," Tasha said.
"I have her password though and I will check it occasionally and she's not allowed to friend anyone she hasn't met in person. It's just one of these situations where you just hope your children are making good choices."
Mya was not allowed an email or Facebook account until she turned 12, but loved using the internet to watch old episodes of her favourite television shows, like Glee, and playing "virtual world" games like Club Penguin.
The family makes a conscious effort to switch off from the digital world and reconnect through old-fashioned activities like playing board games together.
"You don't actually have to pick up a phone and call someone, so I wonder if that's going to be a loss of skills for these guys, but I won't know until they get older," Tasha said.
"I think I struggle with it a little bit to be honest - it encourages a lot of disjointedness."
Ilam's Duffy family chewed through 50GB of data within 20 days thanks to hours of web surfing, video streaming, online games and conversations through smartphone applications like Viber and Snapchat.
When The Press visited, 16-year-old Aidan was busy clearing up the dinner dishes, but 13-year-old Tegan and 15-year-old Ben were continuously tapping away at their smartphones while their parents watched the New Zealand version of X-Factor on television.
Within the household were two laptops, a desktop computer, an iPad, two iPods, an Xbox and five smartphones.
Mum Toni said the adults of the house use the internet only for checking email and the odd online errand like internet banking, but for the kids, social networking websites like Facebook were a huge part of their lives
"They won't answer the telephone because there's no need, their friends will be online or they will text them," she said.
"Social networking has become such a big thing, even the gaming . . . "
Aidan said he used the internet mostly for accessing Facebook and playing Xbox games, often playing with and against other gamers through cyberspace.
Younger siblings Tegan and Ben also accessed the internet every day, using their smartphones to keep on top of their friends' Facebook updates. They carried the phones with them constantly and always had them switched on.
Ben suggested getting more data would solve the problem of running out too quickly.
"They get more than enough as it is," dad Owen replied quickly.
University of Otago communications lecturer Erika Pearson said every new development in communications technology affected the things families did and the ways they interacted with each other in the home.
"With every kind of new change... there's always a little bit of ?oh, won't somebody think of the children, oh, this is very scary'.
"Certainly it changes how people experience living with other people, but whether it's a good or bad thing I think it's very much a personal experience," she said.
"For some people this helps them to pursue personal interests that they then bring back and they can talk about with their family and it produces new conversation and they get closer that way; for other people they find it very isolating."
Social networking was the latest development to change the ways families communicated with each other, including those still living under the same roof.
"People use these tools as an extension of sort of leaving notes on the kitchen bench... saying can you pick up some milk or can you drive Tommy to his sports practice or whatever it is. It's the same behaviours, they're just using the tool to streamline the things that we already do in different ways."
Being able to do more online did not change a key part of growing up though, she said.
"Kids still want to hang out with each other, they still want to talk and if they have to use technology to facilitate that in amongst all their other commitments then that's a good thing."
- ? Fairfax NZ News
Source: http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/digital-living/8631583/Web-intruders-put-family-ties-to-the-test
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