The switch to communicating with family and friends through technology is yet another upheaval incurred by the pandemic. The use of video calls for work purposes, cat filters and bizarre parish council meetings aside, has been a relatively smooth transition for most, but attempting to spend time with our loved ones through a screen seems a much more alien concept, particularly when meet ups were a given prior to lockdown.
The need to connect through video has increased dramatically in the past year, but for individuals separated from their families due to migration, the likes of Skype and FaceTime have always been necessary.
Dolores, a healthcare worker originally from the Philippines, has not seen her children in over a year, the longest she has ever gone without returning to visit since emigrating in 2001. She says that interactive technology enables her to play a key role in their daily lives from afar.
“I do a lot over Messenger with my four- year- old daughter. There are a lot of games and activities available through it, so that’s how I interact with her mostly,” Dolores says.
Approximately 1 million people on average emigrate from the Philippines every year seeking employment, resulting in many families only being able to see each other in person sporadically on their visits back home. The restrictions currently imposed on travel make even this prospect considerably less likely.
Despite this, Dolores remains hopeful that she will return to see her family sometime in the near future. For the time being, she continues to video call her older son and husband on a daily basis to keep in touch.
She believes WhatsApp and Messenger make a huge difference in terms of easily accessible communication, citing her own experience of remaining in contact with her father, who worked in Saudi Arabia when she was a child, as being a lengthy waiting game.
“I remember we had to record our voices on cassette tapes and send them over to him. It would take months for him to receive them and even more time yet again for us to get a response back,” says Dolores.
The uncertainties surrounding face to face communication have enabled video technology to come to the forefront when conducting our work, staying in touch with family and trying to maintain some grasp on our social lives during the pandemic. According to Zoom’s CEO Eric Yuan, the app had 300 million daily users in April 2020, in comparison to just 10 million in pre-pandemic December 2019.
Will these apps remain as vital in a future free of COVID-19 restrictions? The answer seems an obvious no, but their basic function- to connect people with one another irrespective of barriers – will always be important in an increasingly interconnected world that has family and friends at scattered corners of the globe.