Grandma's On the Computer Screen This Thanksgiving

Pickens writes "Video calling, long anticipated by science fiction, is filtering into everyday use, and two demographic groups not usually thought of as high-tech are among the earliest adopters — the nursery school set and their grandparents. According to the AARP, nearly half of American grandparents live more than 200 miles from at least one of their grandchildren, and about two-thirds of grandchildren see one set of grandparents only a few times a year, if that. Internet companies are also promoting video chat as an enhancement to standard IM and Internet phone services; for example, this month Google introduced bare-bones video capability in Gmail. Some veterans of the technology fear that the video cam has started to substitute, rather than supplement, actual time together. And no one quite knows what it means to a generation of 2-year-olds to have slightly pixelated versions of their grandparents as regular fixtures in their lives."

Comments

Makes a better story if there's fear, eh?

[Malc]

"Some veterans of the technology fear that the video cam has started to substitute, rather than supplement, actual time together."

Maybe for some families, time together is impractical. Webcam time is better than no time.

I've always been sceptical about the benefits of a webcam and thought it a bit of a gimmick. I've just spent four months living overseas and on a whim thought I'd try webcams out with my partner back home. It made a huge difference. I suspect that for people who are using it as a substitute, they're probably people who don't make much of an effort with relationships anyway. They have more to fear than the tech issues.