Back in August, I took over this technology blog for the State Press Magazine (which might be pretty obvious) and was ecstatic at the chance to let my creative juices flow in a field I love. Since then, I have worked with my amazing editors to produce posts that both held relevancy and interest to you, my readers. Since this is the last Tech Spec post of the school year, I wanted to go out the same way I started my blog: by sharing a personal story about technology.
I recently went over to my grandmother’s house to catch up and to help her out with everything she needed done. As I was talking with her, I noticed that she now owned an iPad Mini (my grandma is good with technology). Of course, I had to talk to her about it: when she got it, why she got it, if she liked it, etc. She spoke about how impressed she was about how it can effectively cut out most of her use for her desktop computer since she can answer emails, write documents and browse the web with it. As my grandma shared these positive points, she told me about her favorite feature, which is FaceTime. I immediately thought that I understood, because she has many friends across the world (so FaceTime could become be her new outlet to catching up with peers), but that was not the reason. Her main use of FaceTime is to check in on my uncle.
My uncle suffers from multiple illnesses, including epilepsy. He has been in a care home almost all of life, making communication between him and my grandma strained. Everyone gets to see my uncle around holidays as he is brought to my grandmother’s house to celebrate with us, but that is pretty much it. Since my uncle has an iPad that he can use as another form of communication, my grandma realized that they could also video chat each other. She had one of the workers at the care home help set everything up and then the magic began. Since my grandma cannot leave the house frequently, she never gets to go visit him. FaceTime changed that. My uncle, with help, is now able to see and interact with his mom whenever they call one another. The part of the story that touched me the most was when they were ending one of their first calls. My grandma was able to give him a kiss goodnight for the first time in ages. She kissed her hand and held it to the camera, and my uncle picked up the iPad and kissed the screen.
You could see the emotions on my grandmother’s face as she shared this story with me; technology gave her something that she never dreamed that she would be able to experience ever again.
This is why I love technology. It opens the possibilities in the world; technology can overcome the hurdles that we have learned to simply accept as impossible. Sure, technology can be frustrating and hard to understand, but the truly amazing outcomes are worth every minute of it (to me, at least).
If you have any questions or comments, email me at cejeffre@asu.edu and follow me on Twitter @Court_Jeffrey. Thank you for reading these last eight months!
