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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."
Grandma's On the Computer Screen This Thanksgiving
Oh she's on the computer screen alright ... but it's not a webcam I'd want to watch.
*shudders*
Goddamn rule 34!
My work here is dung.
A bit off topic but, it felt I had to comment about the following statement:
"and about two-thirds of grandchildren see one set of grandparents only a few times a year, if that."
I think kids who get to hang out with their grandparents a lot at an early age are incredibly fortunate these days. I think it's a valuable experience for kids to meet and get to know an older generation. And when they get older, it also can make being a teenager a bit easier if you can talk with people who have a strong influence over your parents, but are also not your parents. Only works for the types who have mellowed out with age, not with the types of grand parents who got crazy with age (or were just crazy to begin with).
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
E.M. Forster wrote a story call The Machine Stops in which humans have become so isolated as to live in individual cells with all their needs provided by machinery that delivers everything to their isolated habitats. It is considered weird to actually meet someone in person. It's a great read and the parallels to the internet are a little eerie.
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
My biggest issue with video conferencing is that no matter where you place the camera, if you are looking at the person on the screen, to them it looks like you are looking away from them. Put the camera on top of the screen, and your eyes are pointing down from the camera which makes it look like you are lying. Put the camera to the side, and it looks like your thoughts are wandering.
If someone can come up with a camera embedded in the middle of the screen, that would be awesome.
Video calling is more of gimmick for mobile devices IMHO. When 3G first came out here in France, my wife & I got two GSMs that had video calling. We used it twice as a gimmick, then just never bothered again.
It's different in a business context, but there again, the video part seems always to be sued to slow slides rather than faces. Good advice that I've always followed is 'meet the people in real life first' before you try doing anything significant via videoconf - or even a normal call.
Finally, what may propel uptake by the kids and elders is simplicity. My elderly mther did not use Skype until I bought her a cordless skypephone that 'just works' (no PC required).
Webcams and software used to be a bitch to setup and use, and you had to stay stuck to the desktop PC. Plus all the conferencing s/w was incompatible.
Now my kids all have little Asus Eee PCs with Skype/MSM and integrated Wifi & Webcam, so they can wonder about the place untethered and chat with their grandparents and friends 'normally'. Interesting, though, they'll always be doing another thing at he same time - you just don't seem to get the same focused concentration on the other person with video conf.
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.
My parents were abusive. Physically, emotionally, they were out there.
Highlights from my childhood include being abandon 3 miles from home, with the family dog, without a leash. I wound up taking off my shoelaces and using them for a leash.
Another time, they wanted me to eat the tomatoes in my salad. I didn't. I just hate the taste of tomatoes. Things escalated. My parents eventually decided they'd take my leather belt off and whip me with it until I caved.
The list goes on and on.
The classic "holy shit" moment would be when they decided my brother, who was in medical school at the time, wasn't spending enough time with them. So the told folks at the school they thought he was using drugs. He wasn't. But that lie nearly cost him his future career.
I was in my mid-20's before I realized that most kids aren't actively trying to commit suicide to escape their parents. I was one of the lucky ones. I got away, and I got help.
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That was all decades ago. Now, I'm a parent, and I face an awful situation: Do I cut ties with my parents, who are now grandparents? Or do I keep them in my kids lives, but at a distance?
It's not as cut & dried as you think.
If I cut my parents out of our lives, I would face a lawsuit. My parents are wealthy. I'm not.
More critically: If I cut them out, what do I do a decade from now when my kids turn 18, and my parents show up out of nowhere to give them a new car. They'll pull the o'l line: "We wanted to be there for you, giving you birthday presents, but your parents wouldn't let us."
If you have never dealt with someone who has a borderline personality disorder, or who is obsessive-compulsive about winning and quite machiavellian about it, well you are just fucking screwed.
You can't imagine the depths and degrees of the lying and manipulation that go on. It is beyond the comprehension of a sane mind.
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Video chat offers a unique opportunity. I don't have to worry about them hitting my kids. I can supervise, even record & play back, and discuss afterwards what is happening. Where they are lying. How to tell they are lying. What they hope to gain from their lies.
Besides, when they misbehave, it's a lot easier to close the laptop lid than to throw them out of the house. (Not that I wouldn't enjoy throwing them out. But doing so does set a bad example for my kids.)
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As my wife so aptly put it: "It's like going to the zoo. You don't want the tigers to come visit you..."