'The iConnected Parent'

With the start of a new academic year -- and a new crop of freshmen leaving home for the first time -- comes the now-inevitable round of articles about the parents who have a little too much trouble letting go (nor does Inside Higher Ed claim to be excepted from the trend). Are the ties that bind really growing tighter each year? And if they are, what does it mean, and should we be worried?

In their new book, The iConnected Parent: Staying Close to Your Kids in College (and Beyond) While Letting Them Grow Up (Free Press), Barbara K. Hofer and Abigail Sullivan Moore argue that, thanks to the exponential proliferation of communicative technologies such as cell phones, e-mail, Skype, Facebook, and more, college students really are more in touch with their parents than ever before -- and what constitutes a "normal" amount of contact is recalibrated (upward) with each passing year.