Teens and their parents often like to use the same types of technology and use them with the same frequency. However, teens are far more likely to say that they think the technology that both they and their parents use has helped to make their own lives much easier. While the general consensus of both teens and parents is that technology has helped make modern life more manageable, 18% fewer parents would agree than their teens. Additionally, even though most parents would say that the internet is good for their teens, there has been an increase every year in the number of parents who think the internet is harmful since 2004.

In many families, lots of rules revolve around the internet and most of them are regarding what their children can do on the internet and not how much time they spend on the internet. It seems that having children affects how much you use the internet and other related technologies. The percentage of parents who use the internet versus the percentage of other adults who use the internet is higher. Parents who regularly use the internet have teenage children who regularly use the internet.

Another trend between teens and parents in that in a household, a teen will likely own the same number of gadgets as the parents, but they will often be different kinds of devices. An example of this trend is that the most commonly owned electronic device by parents is the cell phone followed by the desktop computer and with teens it is the exact mirror, with desktop computers being more popular than cell phones. The one kind of technology that teens are more likely to own that their parents is an MP3 Player or iPod. This indicates an interesting trend that parents who buy more expensive and fancy technology and electronic devices for themselves do not tend to buy equally nice and expensive technological devices for their children. As our world changes and more and more technologies are discovered the technological gap between generations will decrease in size. It is debatable whether technology has made our lives easier, but many would agree that now that we have technology, it is impossible to live with out it.