Last weekend, I was in a Starbucks in a mall in Hong Kong with one of my sons and his family. We decided to get in touch with another son who lives in Columbus, Ohio, but is spending the next several months working on a project in Beijing and Tibet.
We knew he was in Beijing Saturday morning so called him using Skype on an iPhone. So there we were, sipping Starbucks lattes and talking by video Skype with the son in Beijing, We could see that he, too, was sipping a Starbucks coffee while talking with us on his iPhone as well. And he reported he had just spoken--by Skype--with his wife in Columbus, Ohio while she, too, was sipping a Starbucks and talking with him on her iPhone.
Ye Gods, do Starbucks, Skype and Apple rule my life? Looks like it. One thing's for sure...they are enabling conversations across continents in a manner that is now commonplace. A far cry from the kind of excitement that used to surround the "long distance" calls of my childhood when the family would crowd around a land line telephone and urge each other to talk quickly becuase those calls were so expensive.
Is this Skyping/Starbucks/iPhone existence bringing the world closer together? In last weekend's instance, I have to argue, yes.
No surprise to me that the price Microsoft paid for Skype was so high.
But virtual hugs are not as good as the real thing. To get that, I had to fly to Hong Kong.
Worth every penny.
It's why I'll go to Beijing later this summer. Nothing beats face to face connection. But in the meanwhile, the video Skype call over iPhone ain't bad.
A friend in Ontario whose granddaughter has lived in San Francisco and Uruguay reads a nightly story to her over Skype. This year, she upgraded to having two cameras, so she can point a camera at the book or at her. When her granddaughter came to visit, she wasn't at all shy - she already had spent lots of time with her grandmother!
Another friend who travels a lot on business has supper with his family most nights. There's a monitor at his place at the table, and he eats his room service dinner while the family is eating theirs.
As you point out, there's nothing like face-to-face contact, but Skype certainly helps in the interludes between meetings.
Posted by: Lib Gibson | May 26, 2011 at 11:09 AM
Another friend who travels a lot on business has supper with his family most nights. There's a monitor at his place at the table, and he eats his room service dinner while the family is eating theirs.
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when the family would crowd around a land line telephone and urge each other to talk quickly becuase those calls were so expensive.
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