Geezers get in on the Web action
Grandma: The computer will keep her at bay. Photo: CC/Travis Church
Thanks to my brother, Erik Baard, for passing along this piece, about grannies and grandpas making their holiday appearances via webcam:
“We would be strangers to them if we didn’t have the Web cam,” said Susan Pierce, 61, of Shreveport, La., who will be a virtual attendee at Thanksgiving dinner with her grandchildren in Jersey City this year.
Over the last year, Ms. Pierce and her husband watched Dylan, 17 months, learn to walk and talk over the Web cam, and witnessed his 4-year-old sister Kelsie’s drawings of people evolve from indeterminate blobs to figures with arms and fingers and toes.
But the powerful illusion of physical proximity also sharpens their ache for the real thing. “You just wish you could reach out and cuddle them,” said Ms. Pierce, a nursing professor. “Seeing them makes you miss them more.”
But many grandparents find that the Web cam eases the transition during in-person visits, when grandchildren may refuse to sit on their laps or may reject their hugs because they do not recognize them. As one Web cam evangelist wrote on her blog, www.nanascorner.com: “You’ll be able to pick up where you left off without those warming up to you, awkward moments.”
My emphases, in the excerpt, above. Two concerns: Visiting via webcam makes separation more painful, the article seems to suggests; I resist any technology celebrated for ameliorating natural human feelings, as noted by the Times, when it cites this incredibly fart-y website.
via Grandma’s on the Computer Screen – NYTimes.com
