I’m excited to have won one of Texas State’s internal research grants for a  project exploring how childcare apps affect working parents’ well-being. I’ve been struck recently by employees’ record-breaking levels of stress, triggering the “burnout epidemic” and the “great resignation.” As a parent, I know many of us have been particularly struggling, as blurred boundaries between work and home increase interruptions from family members and caregivers. This project will investigate childcare apps (e.g., HiMama, Brightwheel) and parent-teacher communication apps (e.g., ClassDojo, Seesaw), which inundate working parents with messages throughout the workday, with notifications, pictures, and questions. Daycares and schools ubiquitously adopt these social technologies, but there is little to no academic research on their effects. Over the next year, I’m excited to work on this project, which will seek to understand how features and uses of childcare apps—the content, frequency of messages, etc.—play a role in working parents’ ability to compartmentalize responsibilities, manage multiple identities, and cognitively function at work. Stay tuned 🙂