Technology is often blamed for the degradation of the traditional family unit (See: gory video games and internet addiction.) So it’s good to hear of a gadget that’s actually bringing families together instead of separating them.
But I didn’t expect that gadget to be the pedestrian, jittery webcam.
According to a story in the New York Times, one of the growing trends in parenting is the use of webcam babysitting by, of all people, previously technophobe grandparents.
If you think about it, this trend makes a lot of sense. Those who use webcams best use its video feed for constant surveillance or consistent live reports of their lives. The more you use it to span distances with a relatively accurate visual rendering, the better it works. And Grandparents have a lot of time on their hands and are willing to spend hours at a time staring at a screen to keep up with their grandkids. They don’t have to miss that first step, for instance, even if it’s not the same as being there.
And more and more overworked and undermanned parents are using their own far-off parents to check up on their own sons and daughters. Grandparents naturally like to maintain a close relationship with their grandkids, but more often than not, they live too far to make consistent trips to see them. But the growth of webcam tech has given them a candid, viable communication tool.
Skype and iChat programs have become more dependable, less prone to cut off connections. Webcams have improved their resolution feed, and some have even added silly features that can appeal to children. And speech recognition accuracy and improved noise canceling features have toned down the previously ubiquitous problem that was ambient background noise.
Webcam babysitting inevitably brings up fuzzy psychological questions. The camera might make grandparents feel like they need to visit less often and the kids might not recognize the meat version of the talking pixilated heads that talk to them between visits. However, it seems likely that the kids will be alright and will figure out the difference eventually, and that it’s the parents who grew up differently and have yet to use this technology in this way, that will have a slightly harder time getting used to it.
Photo: huliebaby/flickr
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