Society, we all complain, isn’t the same anymore. There is always a shortage of time, technology has infiltrated all realms of our world and relationships are viewed very differently.
As a young adult who grew up in this changing world, I have seen the idea of relationships evolve. I am old enough to have heard stories of and seen movies of lovers having to wait weeks, months and sometimes even years to hear from each other because of the distances, limited communication methods and the lack of technology as we know it today. On the flipside I am also young enough that I have been a part of this wave of change that has given birth to the modern day relationship.
The internet was a huge breakthrough for mankind. Information from anywhere was available anywhere else instantly. E-mail was even bigger, people being able to send virtual letters to others with immediate access. Then came chat, video conferencing, social media, smart phones, cloud computing, etc. etc.
I still remember how my parents were flabbergasted when I wanted to get a mobile phone (cellphone) in 10th grade. I had held back the urge to ask for one until I saw every one of my peers in school get one. After much resistance and furor they eventually relented, making it very clear how big a deal it was and how much responsibility the phone brought with it….
Soon after I met Sana in England, I was back in India and she was still in England. Having just met an incredible girl, the only means I had to foster any relationship with this person was through the plethora of options available via the web. We started off by exchanging facebook messages. These messages kept growing in length and we would eagerly await the other person’s message every morning as we woke up. Soon we added to our daily facebook messages, msn chat (Instant messaging or IM), helping us talk in present tense. We had our first cross country phone call and soon added another dimension to our ‘relationship’: Skype. Little did I know at the point that Skype was to single handedly change my life…
As me and her continuously moved countries, she went to Pakistan then to Saudi Arabia. I went from India back to the US, our communication only picked up in intensity and volume. Despite the vast time differences and cultural differences of the places we were in, on the web nothing mattered. Our facebook messages had reached monumental lengths and had become a treasure trove of memories in themselves, 6-8 hour skype sessions abound, emails, g-chat’s, you name it we did it.
Over the course of the next few years I was to meet Sana about 7-8 times and the rest of it was a virtual long distance relationship. People asked me many times how I did it and though I do agree that we both put a lot into the relationship, at the end of the day the ease of access to modern technology had a major role in aiding our long distance love.
During this phase, facebook and twitter became hugely popular and smartphones i.e. Iphones, blackberry’s, Android’s became common place. Phones came with App’s for mail, chat, skype and what not. Technology was being integrated like never before. You were getting email on your phone, on your tablet and if you hadn’t still been able to check it, it was there on your traditional laptop or computer. 2G came, 3G came and now we have 4G.
What I soon started to notice was that the traditional phone call had become rather rare. I had unlimited texting but the lowest amount of minutes on my phone plan myself. We were updating our statuses, tweeting before things happened, bbm’ing (Blackberry’s messenger service), texting, but we were hardly interacting with each other in the traditional manner. On any given birthday, you could find hundreds of generic “Happy Birthday” messages on someone’s facebook. Yet at the same person’s birthday party, with the same people attending, there were long moments of awkward silence and fidgeting with phones. Was the art of conversation dying? Had we gone so overboard that we didn’t know how to interact with one another without technology?
I downloaded an app on my iphone called ‘Words with friends’. It’s like scrabble and you can play with friends who have the app or through facebook. You make a move and then wait till the other player makes a move. This can happen over a few hours, days or even weeks. It’s quite nice actually. The app has an interesting little feature wherein you can chat with the person you are playing the game with. I found this interesting because even within a game there was a little chat feature and I actually found myself having some real conversations with my friends including someone who told me they were quitting their banking job in New York to move to New Delhi to pursue Indian classical dance.
My initial skepticism to this overload of technology dialed down a little when I discovered an app called ‘What’s App’! It’s a cross platform messenger service (Iphone, Android, blackberry etc.) that you can download on your phone and uses the internet to send messages. However it is linked to your phone number so wherever you might go, it still recognizes you as the user. I myself am perplexed about some of the nuances of this app. I started using the app because some of my friends are based outside the US and me being a lover of instant texts/messaging found this a great outlet to talk with these people. What I noticed very soon was that having something like ‘what’s app’ made me share many more things with these same people. With the time differences and the effort it takes to make a phone call, I found it easier to leave messages on ‘what’s app’ and engaged in deep, meaningful conversations across the globe that I was earlier saving till when I met them once or twice a year.
It was one particular incident that made me realize the power of these tools. In a period that spanned 12 or so hours starting with me attending a party, sleeping, waking up early to go to work, going and working on my project with my team, catching up with a friend, getting lunch and then ending up in my room, I found myself engaged in an altogether different conversation with a friend in India. At no point did this person know about what all I was doing but it made me realize that I was able to have a conversation without any distractions so as to speak. Wasn’t that the art of communication anyway; to give one your undivided attention and be an attentive listener? Had technology been an enabler in a weird way in this case?
As I moved from Atlanta to Beirut to New Delhi to Singapore, I was always connected. Sharing videos, pictures and messages of my experiences almost immediately with the people I cared about. I also started using Skype on my Iphone and noticed how that opened up a completely new realm of communication for me. What I was losing in terms of distance I realized could be made up for if technology were used to its true potential.
I caught up with a friend of mine in New Delhi and a conversation with him instilled my faith in what I feel is the way forward for relationships in this global world. This friend of mine hops between Mozambique, Houston and New Delhi on business through the year. He recently met a girl through a friend of his and like me started talking to her on ‘Words with Friends’. Once they realized they were exchanging paragraphs and paragraphs they moved their conversations to g-chat (Gmail’s chat service). Once that wasn’t enough, they started using what’s app (The girl was in Singapore all the while). Over the next 5 months, without ever meeting, they opened up to each other like they hadn’t to anyone else and chatted for hours on end while they went about their independent lives in very different lands, disconnected by distance but connected by technology. Over a breakfast meeting in Delhi when they finally met, it took all his courage to stammer his feelings to her. As of a few weeks ago, they started dating!
When I heard the story, it made me extremely happy. It felt great to hear another story like mine. To know that relationships could be fostered despite distances. Despite the advances in technology, relationships will still require the same things they did before. Time, effort and care are key ingredients to successful platonic and romantic relationship that have remained the same over decades. Only the means seem to be changing.
Today we live in a world where it is almost impossible to find oneself disconnected from the world. Technology is too seamless and well distributed for us to be able to make excuses of a lack of time and means. Now more so than ever, we can easily stay in touch with those we care for!
In the golden days of Indian film, they showed female protagonists waiting years for their lovers to return from war or far off work assignments. Their love was unadulterated, infinite and relentless but the ecstasy they received in reunion is something I feel envious about. It is hard to imagine not communicating with the beloved people in our lives for that long isn’t it? Relationships are not the same anymore, they never will be! However we all still pine for them and cannot make any excuses of distance or time for not pursuing healthy, meaningful and deep friendships!
My flight lands in an hour and I hope to text a friend when I land, share a photo with Sana in Saudi, what’s app my business partner in Delhi, leave a facebook message for my cousin sister returning to Sydney and email the friends I met in Singapore a few days ago! Multiple individual relationships spanning different places and people, this is the very essence of what I am talking about!
As a young adult who grew up in this changing world, I have seen the idea of relationships evolve. I am old enough to have heard stories of and seen movies of lovers having to wait weeks, months and sometimes even years to hear from each other because of the distances, limited communication methods and the lack of technology as we know it today. On the flipside I am also young enough that I have been a part of this wave of change that has given birth to the modern day relationship.
The internet was a huge breakthrough for mankind. Information from anywhere was available anywhere else instantly. E-mail was even bigger, people being able to send virtual letters to others with immediate access. Then came chat, video conferencing, social media, smart phones, cloud computing, etc. etc.
I still remember how my parents were flabbergasted when I wanted to get a mobile phone (cellphone) in 10th grade. I had held back the urge to ask for one until I saw every one of my peers in school get one. After much resistance and furor they eventually relented, making it very clear how big a deal it was and how much responsibility the phone brought with it….
Soon after I met Sana in England, I was back in India and she was still in England. Having just met an incredible girl, the only means I had to foster any relationship with this person was through the plethora of options available via the web. We started off by exchanging facebook messages. These messages kept growing in length and we would eagerly await the other person’s message every morning as we woke up. Soon we added to our daily facebook messages, msn chat (Instant messaging or IM), helping us talk in present tense. We had our first cross country phone call and soon added another dimension to our ‘relationship’: Skype. Little did I know at the point that Skype was to single handedly change my life…
As me and her continuously moved countries, she went to Pakistan then to Saudi Arabia. I went from India back to the US, our communication only picked up in intensity and volume. Despite the vast time differences and cultural differences of the places we were in, on the web nothing mattered. Our facebook messages had reached monumental lengths and had become a treasure trove of memories in themselves, 6-8 hour skype sessions abound, emails, g-chat’s, you name it we did it.
Over the course of the next few years I was to meet Sana about 7-8 times and the rest of it was a virtual long distance relationship. People asked me many times how I did it and though I do agree that we both put a lot into the relationship, at the end of the day the ease of access to modern technology had a major role in aiding our long distance love.
During this phase, facebook and twitter became hugely popular and smartphones i.e. Iphones, blackberry’s, Android’s became common place. Phones came with App’s for mail, chat, skype and what not. Technology was being integrated like never before. You were getting email on your phone, on your tablet and if you hadn’t still been able to check it, it was there on your traditional laptop or computer. 2G came, 3G came and now we have 4G.
What I soon started to notice was that the traditional phone call had become rather rare. I had unlimited texting but the lowest amount of minutes on my phone plan myself. We were updating our statuses, tweeting before things happened, bbm’ing (Blackberry’s messenger service), texting, but we were hardly interacting with each other in the traditional manner. On any given birthday, you could find hundreds of generic “Happy Birthday” messages on someone’s facebook. Yet at the same person’s birthday party, with the same people attending, there were long moments of awkward silence and fidgeting with phones. Was the art of conversation dying? Had we gone so overboard that we didn’t know how to interact with one another without technology?
I downloaded an app on my iphone called ‘Words with friends’. It’s like scrabble and you can play with friends who have the app or through facebook. You make a move and then wait till the other player makes a move. This can happen over a few hours, days or even weeks. It’s quite nice actually. The app has an interesting little feature wherein you can chat with the person you are playing the game with. I found this interesting because even within a game there was a little chat feature and I actually found myself having some real conversations with my friends including someone who told me they were quitting their banking job in New York to move to New Delhi to pursue Indian classical dance.
My initial skepticism to this overload of technology dialed down a little when I discovered an app called ‘What’s App’! It’s a cross platform messenger service (Iphone, Android, blackberry etc.) that you can download on your phone and uses the internet to send messages. However it is linked to your phone number so wherever you might go, it still recognizes you as the user. I myself am perplexed about some of the nuances of this app. I started using the app because some of my friends are based outside the US and me being a lover of instant texts/messaging found this a great outlet to talk with these people. What I noticed very soon was that having something like ‘what’s app’ made me share many more things with these same people. With the time differences and the effort it takes to make a phone call, I found it easier to leave messages on ‘what’s app’ and engaged in deep, meaningful conversations across the globe that I was earlier saving till when I met them once or twice a year.
It was one particular incident that made me realize the power of these tools. In a period that spanned 12 or so hours starting with me attending a party, sleeping, waking up early to go to work, going and working on my project with my team, catching up with a friend, getting lunch and then ending up in my room, I found myself engaged in an altogether different conversation with a friend in India. At no point did this person know about what all I was doing but it made me realize that I was able to have a conversation without any distractions so as to speak. Wasn’t that the art of communication anyway; to give one your undivided attention and be an attentive listener? Had technology been an enabler in a weird way in this case?
As I moved from Atlanta to Beirut to New Delhi to Singapore, I was always connected. Sharing videos, pictures and messages of my experiences almost immediately with the people I cared about. I also started using Skype on my Iphone and noticed how that opened up a completely new realm of communication for me. What I was losing in terms of distance I realized could be made up for if technology were used to its true potential.
I caught up with a friend of mine in New Delhi and a conversation with him instilled my faith in what I feel is the way forward for relationships in this global world. This friend of mine hops between Mozambique, Houston and New Delhi on business through the year. He recently met a girl through a friend of his and like me started talking to her on ‘Words with Friends’. Once they realized they were exchanging paragraphs and paragraphs they moved their conversations to g-chat (Gmail’s chat service). Once that wasn’t enough, they started using what’s app (The girl was in Singapore all the while). Over the next 5 months, without ever meeting, they opened up to each other like they hadn’t to anyone else and chatted for hours on end while they went about their independent lives in very different lands, disconnected by distance but connected by technology. Over a breakfast meeting in Delhi when they finally met, it took all his courage to stammer his feelings to her. As of a few weeks ago, they started dating!
When I heard the story, it made me extremely happy. It felt great to hear another story like mine. To know that relationships could be fostered despite distances. Despite the advances in technology, relationships will still require the same things they did before. Time, effort and care are key ingredients to successful platonic and romantic relationship that have remained the same over decades. Only the means seem to be changing.
Today we live in a world where it is almost impossible to find oneself disconnected from the world. Technology is too seamless and well distributed for us to be able to make excuses of a lack of time and means. Now more so than ever, we can easily stay in touch with those we care for!
In the golden days of Indian film, they showed female protagonists waiting years for their lovers to return from war or far off work assignments. Their love was unadulterated, infinite and relentless but the ecstasy they received in reunion is something I feel envious about. It is hard to imagine not communicating with the beloved people in our lives for that long isn’t it? Relationships are not the same anymore, they never will be! However we all still pine for them and cannot make any excuses of distance or time for not pursuing healthy, meaningful and deep friendships!
My flight lands in an hour and I hope to text a friend when I land, share a photo with Sana in Saudi, what’s app my business partner in Delhi, leave a facebook message for my cousin sister returning to Sydney and email the friends I met in Singapore a few days ago! Multiple individual relationships spanning different places and people, this is the very essence of what I am talking about!
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