Digital media is my life. It’s the world I grew up in…even though I can remember life before the internet (vaguely, that is). It is what I spent six years studying in college and graduate school; it is how I share my life with the world; it is how I make a living; and most recently, it has become my lifeline.
Enter: Skype. The free video chat application has blown up the digital world since its introduction in 2003. Now hosting 929 million users, the company is said to be worth $8.5 billion. It’s being used to connect deployed soldiers with their families, educate students together, separated by continents, and most recently as a cost-reducing tool for “in-person” interviews, eliminating the need for candidates to be flown into offices.
Whatever its use, it’s brilliant, and I think sometimes it has enhanced my life in significant ways. I’ve always found that the hardest part of living far from home is missing out on watching my nephew and nieces grow. They are the only children in our immediate family, and are loved in a way I didn’t know possible for children that weren’t your own.
Since I have moved to the City, Skype has been my lifeline to them. I’m not left with phone conversations where every two minutes my sister says, “Avery, you have to hold the phone to your ear,” or have to be told that Sadie Grace’s hair is turning red. I can now see it with my eyes, and it’s like I’m there.
My immediate family, my aunt’s family and my grandparents usually do Sunday dinner together. It’s a tradition I grew accustomed to during my brief time living at home before I moved here. Now I don’t have to miss out on Sunday dinner. I Skype with my entire family, everyone taking a turn in front of the computer to hear about my week and tell me about theirs. Now Jackson can tell me about the girls in his new class, and I can see him blushing, knowing he has a crush on someone. I wouldn’t know this if I only spoke to him.
You might think that Skype isn’t for everyone, but you’re wrong. My grandparents Skype with me unfazed that even though they don’t know how to program a number in their cell phone, they can video chat with me. My parents Skype with me, following the directions to log on that my sister typed out for them. My uncles, so tech-unsavvy were giggling like 5-year-olds in a candy store the first time we saw each other through computer screens. Even SG, in her short four months of life, Skypes with me, staring at the bright computer screen with her wobbly head, smiling just because she hears a familiar voice.
I also spend Sundays Skyping with my girlfriends. The one thing I miss most about living with my future bridesmaids is laying around on Sunday, recapping our weekend (and the *ahem* crazy nights out). Although we aren’t together experiencing things, we still talk like we are all together. I don’t have to miss out just because I’m so far away.
If you have a friend or family member that is as far as a phone call, I suggest this solution to closing that gap. The digital world wasn’t designed to make our world more difficult. Although it makes our world more complicated at times, it mutually makes it better. Thank you God for the creators of Skype, they’ve made my life better.
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