LONDON: When it comes to showing off, it seems that modern families prefer to display happiness too.

Researchers in Britain have carried out a study and found that families are increasingly opting for "highly visible" public activities to show to the outside world that they're a happy and united unit.

Whether it be eating out together at a restaurant, a walk in the park or a visit to an art museum on a holiday, the study has found that parents are more keen to show they are spending quality time with their children instead of just watching television at home.

"People of all kinds are consciously displaying their families because you can no longer assume by blood or by household who will belong to it. "They feel the need to do 'family things' in a display of intimacy and belonging. Just look at (Hollywood actors) Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt and their children. Families are saying: 'Let's go out and prove that we are a family'.

"So a parent's 80th birthday, for instance, which was once celebrated in the home, becomes a family outing. It is increasingly activities, rather than kinship, that constitute being a family," The Sunday Telegraph quoted researcher Julie Seymour of Hull University as saying.

Not only the modern but conventional families have the same instinct. Even relatives from different parts of the country who make the effort to meet up want to celebrate their bond in public.