Like a bridge over troubled waters

I have written before about the way communications today keeps us so much better connected than in the past.

When I spent a summer in Israel nearly 40 years ago, overseas long distance calls were prohibitively expensive. I kept my family informed using aerograms, a kind of paper that folded up into a postage prepaid overseas envelop made out of tissue paper. Two weeks later, my family would find out that I was doing just fine, thank you.

Technology has provided a wide range of choices to keep in touch with our kids around the world. Phone calls are cheap enough to enable us to speak to our kids around the world any time we want. Sure, calls sometimes drop, but let’s keep in mind that both ends of the call are travelling at 100 kmph, using mobile devices across a trans-oceanic long distance network. I still marvel at the technology.

Last week, my son returned to Israel to continue work on his post-doctoral research. He told us (via Facebook) earlier this week that he felt a little bit like a one-man Iron Dome missile defense system.

arrive in Tel Aviv, sirens in Rehovot.
go to work in Rehovot, sirens in Tel Aviv
get back home to Tel Aviv, sirens in Rehovot.

coincidence?

I have to admit that these aren’t messages that most parents would find completely comforting, but we have been through this before.

Yes, I would prefer that he was spending more time in Muskoka, where the biggest risk factor is reacting to elevated numbers of mosquitoes this year.

Our anxiety levels are elevated when we learned that his cell phone turned into a brick following a failed repair job. He is using an old phone in the interim (Israel’s mobile services are inexpensive; on the other hand, devices are outrageously expensive). Although connectivity may not keep him safer, somehow it helps us sleep better.

That brings us back to the choices we now have at hand. Skype, Facebook, Twitter supplement old fashioned phone calls. We stay connected via applications on a wide variety of screens, over almost as diverse a variety of networks.

Communications services and technologies help to bring some comfort – kind of a bridge over over troubled waters – helping us feel 6000 miles closer.

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