Deep in the canyons of Studio 5 several weeks ago, the cast of ABC’s hit series “Modern Family” was busy filming an episode. As crew members huddled around the monitors, Cam, the portly, gay Mr. Dad portrayed by Eric Stonestreet, learned some bad news. His partner, Mitchell, had failed to mail out invitations to a fund-raiser in their home that night. Cam had ordered the crab cakes and rented the harps, but he had no guests.

“Get me Mitchell!” Cam shouted to his nephew, Luke.

What followed was a high-tech version of “Who’s on First?” Luke doesn’t know Mitchell’s number. Cam grabs the phone and presses speed dial. Mitchell lets the call go to voice mail. Luke doesn’t know how to press redial. Cam snatches the receiver and gets twisted in his headset. We’ve had five back-and-forths in 10 seconds and still nobody has managed to communicate.

Shakespeare used mistaken identities to flummox his lovers. “Modern Family” uses dropped Skype connections.

In the last two years, “Modern Family” has ridden timely premises like this to surging viewership and six Emmys, including outstanding comedy series. In a rare concurrence, the darling of the critics is one of the highest rated comedies on television, and is the 20th rated show over all this season. This unusual success for a family comedy raises questions: What aspects of contemporary life has it tapped into? What does “Modern Family” say about modern families?

From the beginning, the creators Steve Levitan and Christopher Lloyd (“Cheers,” “Wings”) conceived their show around a newfangled family tree: Jay Pritchett, the patriarch; his Colombian trophy wife, Gloria; and her son, Manny; Jay’s grown son, Mitchell; his partner, Cam; and their adopted Vietnamese daughter; Jay’s high-strung daughter, Claire; her goofball husband, Phil; and their three suburban children.

When the series went on the air in 2009, most of the buzz centered on Mitchell and Cam, who were occasionally shown together in bed, cracked jokes at their own expense, and flaunted every stereotype. But they never kissed, and a fan-generated backlash erupted, then died down last fall after an innocuous smooch.

“While I appreciated that fans care about our characters,” Mr. Stonestreet said, “I never understood why people put their focus on ‘Modern Family,’ a show that introduced a loving, grounded gay couple on television who adopted a baby, and accused it of being homophobic.”

But all the attention on Mitch and Cam’s lip life overshadowed deeper strands that make the show even more probative of contemporary culture. For starters, the characters in “Modern Family” are so immersed in technology that nearly every scene is refracted through a digital funhouse: an iPad screen, a cellphone camera, a baby monitor, a YouTube video. Characters spend half their time glancing past one another rather than communicating directly.