Washington, Sep 6 : In our digital age, even parents have adopted high tech art of family discipline-by snatching cellphones, blocking Facebook pages, pulling the plug on PlayStation.

When Lantha Carley''s high-schooler got a midterm grade report that contained letters of the alphabet that were not A, B or C, she decreed there would be no more Facebook until he delivered a report card with better grades.

"He lived with no lasting damage," the Washington Post quoted Carley as saying.

"It''s a modern version of grounding," said Richard Weissbourd, a Harvard psychologist and author of ''The parents we mean to be.''

"It''s like taking away a weekend or a couple of weekends. It''s a deprivation of social connections in the same way," he added.

In a report earlier this year that captured part of the trend, 62 percent of parents said they had taken away a cellphone as punishment, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Parents "know how important and vital it is to their teens'' existence," said the report''s co-author Amanda Lenhart.

"They were getting them where it hurt," she added. (ANI)