The intimacy of new technologies

When I was in my junior year at university I got a scholarship to go to the US for a year and study comparative politics. For a year, I lived and studied on what at the time seemed like the most beautiful place on earth, the campus at RMWC in Lynchburg Virginia. Since the stipend did not cover any traveling I could not fly back for xmas so for a whole year my only contact with my family was the weekly [always on Snday at 10am] phone call from my parents and some emails I exchanged with my more computer literate friends. And one spring afternoon I also got an 11 page hand written letter from my mom. I remember sitting at one of the many lounge tables spread out across the campus and reading my mom's letter and crying my eyes out, not because she had news of any kind but because it was the closest I had ever felt to her and my people back at home. I still have that letter and every time my friends and I get into an argument about technology and how it estranges people, I think back to that letter and refuse to engage :D.

and yet... for about two months now my mom has a gmail account and has learned the ropes enough to be able to log in every now and then and drop me an email. She writes erratically, sometimes asking me questions to which I reply instantly and which she completely ignores, sometimes telling me stories she has already told me on the phone. And yet the thrill of seeing my mother's name in the Inbox is always the same. Because I know she writes those emails when she is quietly thinking about me. It's not like phone calls when she tells me about hers and dad's day but mostly about a more serene and more mature type of communication. I treasure these emails. I keep them in a folder alongside one special message I got while in the States from a very special person there. I call the folder "post" - like in Post Office, because they feel like real letters, close and intimate.

So, as far as the argument goes, technology may seem remote and intimidating but it's really how you what you use it for. I love getting an early SMS that says "morning :)" and I love my mom's emails. Because, irrespective of the medium, the sentiment behind the message is the real thing.