It is quite common to read that social media - or "unsocial media" - helps explain why people aren't talking enough to their families. Recent survey evidence points to a communication problem. But practitioners doubt if new tech is really the culprit.

(An earlier version of this news item appeared in Family Wealth Report, sister news service to this one. The specific studies were drawn from the US but the lessons are global.)

Wealth practitioners do not appear to think that social media is mainly at fault for grown-up children and their parents not chatting enough about inheriting wealth and philanthropy, but it appears that families do have a communication problem.

A few days ago, two separate reports on inheritance and philanthropy suggested that families aren’t communicating. At the same time, the air is thick with commentary about how social media is in fact “anti-social media”. 

For example, in his recent book The Social Media Upheaval, the University of Tennessee law professor and famed Instapundit blogger Glenn Reynolds argues that these platforms have become toxic and people need to figure out how to adapt and remain mentally healthy, much as urban dwellers had to do when they were confronted with outbreaks of contagious diseases like cholera. (Professor Reynolds, more controversially, argues that platforms such as Facebook should be broken up by anti-trust authorities, because their monopolistic status is also part of the problem.) It is easy to see why there are concerns over “twitter mobs” and the “echo-chamber” effects of people using platforms all the time.

There is plenty of evidence that families aren’t talking enough, even though we live in an era where everyone is, according to the standard narrative, supposed to be more open about their feelings and thoughts than would be the case with, say, the Victorians.

Key Private Bank, the Cleveland, Ohio-based firm, recently reported that HNW parents aren’t talking enough about philanthropy. It found that one-third of advisors cite lack of child involvement and one fourth pointed to a lack of parental openness. The Merrill Center for Family Wealth, meanwhile, produced a white paper showing that an alarming six in 10 wealthy families have no process or structure in place to ensure that they communicate family wealth decisions effectively. At a time when trillions of dollars are due to be transferred to younger adults, the stakes for not managing these transfers well are huge. (The Merrill Center is part of Bank of America.)

With all the worries about how technology might be making people anti-social and self-absorbed - the “iGen” phenomenon - should social media be put on trial for poor family communication?

Anne Marie Levin, director of family wealth consulting at Key Private Bank, doesn’t think so. 

“Parents are not aware of the importance and benefits of communication about such important issues and the risks of not talking about such issues, so in our busy lives it becomes less of a priority,” she told this news service. “Parents don’t want to talk about money; their parents didn’t talk to them about it; so money talk makes them uncomfortable. Parents don’t want to share financial information with children. They fear the effect it will have on them, and don’t want them to share this information with others,” she continued.

Another problem is that “parents don’t know how or when to start the conversation”, she said. 

“A problem is that parents are concerned about the effect that an inheritance will have on their children and grandchildren: will it do them more harm than good, will they be good stewards of the family wealth so that future generations will have the opportunities that money offers, will the inheritance affect their incentive to be productive members of society? They are also concerned that their philanthropic legacy will be lost when they are gone. But they don’t know how to address these concerns,” she said. 

When this publication spoke to Matthew Wesley, co-author of the report on inheritance at the Merrill Center for Family Wealth, he said that families not knowing how to start a conversation was a problem.

Judging by this publication's enquiries, so far there is not much concern in the industry that social media is part of the problem, but this is an issue advisors and clients should watch.