5 Ways to Stay Connected With Technology
Staying in touch with family and friends is easier today than it has ever been in the past. Not that many years ago, reaching out to someone meant calling on a landline and hoping they were available. If not, you left a message and waited for a return call. Today, you can connect with someone anytime, anywhere. Families are separated for any number of reasons, children going off to college, or individuals moving away for new job opportunities. These moves often put a strain on relationships but today’s technological advances can ease the pain of separation and help us stay connected to those we love, no matter the distance.
Texting, instant messaging, and sharing pictures and videos
Texting and instant messaging allow you to quickly reach out to someone. Because our cell phones are always by our side, we are one text away from connecting with family members and friends. It is often easier to send a text than to make a phone call. This is especially helpful for college students who may delay calling their parents, or with families separated by vast distances or many timezones.
Social Media
Social media sites, such as Facebook and Instagram are great for connecting with relatives and long-lost friends. These site allow you to share videos and photos so family members are always aware of what is going on in each other lives. Instead of the traditional catching up with relatives only at weddings and funerals, you can now watch their lives evolve in real time.
Video chatting
Sites such as Skype, Google Hangouts and FaceTime allow you to see your relatives and friends while talking. Allowing all parties to feel connected and present during the conversation in a way that traditional phone calls do not. Older family members, especially those that live alone, may feel additional loneliness and video chatting with their family and friends allows them to be more intimately connected in their daily lives.
Screen sharing
Screen sharing started as a business concept, letting employees in different locations share the same screen to collaborate on a project, but has flourished into a tool used by a much larger market. Everybody, from individuals in long-distance relationships to college friends who now live in different parts of the world, can use screen sharing to enjoy collaborative experiences like movies or games.
Connecting with the world
Technology can help you stay connected with your family, but it can also help keep you connected to the world. News channels are at your fingertips. Live streaming can let you participate in events when you can’t be there in person, from churches to concerts to virtual book clubs, technology is all around us, connecting individuals to each other and to the world at large.
Technology often gets a bad rap for getting in the way of human connection, but these connections are occurring every day, because of technology. Texts, emails, social media posts, video chats, and screen sharing all give us the opportunity to maintain our present relationships and create new ones.