As we roll out of 2016 into 2017, it’s fitting to think about one of the things that’s changed a lot and will keep changing a lot–communications.
My mother-in-law is ‘worried’ about her grandchildren, because they ‘don’t communicate’. She sees them huddled over devices like iPads, laptops, smart phones, and says ‘they’re not talking’. 
Grandma wants to see and hear communications they way she knew them as a girl, if I interpret her concern, correctly. I tried to put the matter differently to her.
She had just gotten off the portable phone with a friend, about an event later today. She’d talked, but had not been face-to-face. Surely, that was different from 60-70 years ago?
She and her children had spent some of the day playing Scrabble, eating conch fritters, and making arrangements for today’s open house.
Some of the planning was being done in the kitchen, some on WhatsApp, some over the phones (mobile and land lines).
The conch fritters had been fried by one of the housekeepers who’d just come back from holiday with her children in Jamaica. We knew about the trip to Kingston and Clarendon because some of it had been reported on Facebook and Instagram. Sadly, when they had spent Christmas in Clarendon, there was no wifi so they weren’t able to call many friends back in Nassau because they could not afford to make the calls, using network lines and data.
I mentioned to my mother-in-law that I had spent part of the previous day dealing with some business overseas. I had called a credit card company in the USA on Skype and sorted out something over a 10 minute call. I had done the same with one of the airlines: free calls using their 1-800 numbers. My mobile phone is not connected to the local carrier when I travel–it’s too expensive to make such calls. Finally, I had made hotel arrangements in Jamaica using a combination of Facebook Messenger and email, via which I had received my confirmation rate and dates. The booking was cancelled and changed about five minutes after I got confirmation, but another email explained that the hotel had a big booking coming so needed to switch my rooms. No problem.
I spent much of the day exchanging Christmas greetings with friends, from the comfort of my mother-in-laws living room: my friend in Vancouver, with whom I went to grammar school, gave me some interesting philophical advice via Facebook Messenger. I gave him it back with a smile, in spades. I ‘heard’ about a year of successful poem writings from an acquaintance in New Zealand, whom I’ve never met in person, but whom I ‘studied’ with during a ‘MOOC’ (massive open online course; a course of study made available over the Internet without charge to a very large number of people) offered by the University of Iowa. The class ranged from India, Israel, USA, New Zealand, and more. She’d posted on Facebook and Twitter her year and news about her 50-plus published poems during the year.
I also had a short conversation with a young Jamaican entrepreneur, using the phone and video facility of FacebookMessenger. He was playing video games and having lunch at the time, so I kept the chat short. He is a media specialist and talked to me about how to advance my use of video for my commentaries, and I told him about some ideas for graphics I wanted to try in 2017. I’ve ordered items on Amazon and my wife will collect them for me on her next US trip.
I had written and posted two blog articles earlier in the day. One, about crime in Jamaica, was generating some reactions and I was exchanging comments about it via Twitter.
My older daughter and I had gone ‘old school’ during the afternoon, on the sofa, yelling at grown men chasing a ball in England on a cold misty night–live from The Bahamas. C’mon, Hull!
The children descended on the house in the evening, aged from about 9 through 20s. My daughter, who had not called all day, said she had been making ‘goo’ with her cousin. Why did you both have cell phones if you’re going use your hands to make stuff? Go figure!
I had a problem with my cell phone and their collective brains worked on it, but to no avail. So, I did some checking and rebooting and disconnecting from networks and bravo, ‘Daddy fixed it!’ Yea! I should have shamed them on Facebook 🙂
We ended the evening with another few rounds of Scrabble with my daughters and my wife, and then a crazy game of ‘Go Fish!’. During that, I commented that I thought my teenage daughter communicates too much with her friends, as they have long group chats in the afternoons, after school and sometimes way past her bed time. I have to turn off the light and take away her laptop. I dont know what they find to laugh about and scream so much. I think about eight of them are chatting and video chatting at the same time–from their homes, not in mine. When they come to visit, they create mayhem and mess. This way, I only have my one child’s messy bedroom to deal with.
My point, without wishing to diss my MIL is that ‘things ain’t what they used to be’. But, I’m not sure that it was all that in the past, either.
I remember when I was a boy, coming home, and if I was not able to go out and play with friends in the street, being inside on my own, with no one to talk to: we had no phone. In fact, no one in my family had a phone for years. We got television sooner in England than any of my relatives in Jamaica. I watched some childrens’ TV and listened to the radio, and read comics and some books. I did my homework. I spent years working in bureaucracies and now for my own pleasure write an ridiculous amount. Funnily, I just got a message about my Twitter account: my most active audience this week was in Slovenia. I know no Slovenes (including Merlene Ottey, who switched from Jamaica), and have never been there. Interesting!
My dear friend, Jean Lowrie-Chin, wrote earlier today on Twitter how we need to respect Seniors, who nursed the Gen X/Gen Y/Millenials in their embrace of tech, and also endorsed the need to be patient with grandparents. 
Credit to grandma; she’s come a long way. She doesn’t use her laptop much, but is getting better with her cell phone and using Whatsapp–she’s better than the lady we heard about who wanted to pay for her Whatsapp bill and wanted to know why she needed data on her phone when she had Internet at home. I may introduce grandma to video chats, but let’s see. As a bit of fogey, myself, I know that I have to embrace much of the technology around me because I am not into hppfing all over the place to get things done. I like banking from my armchair and see little value in standing in lines in banking halls. I get to see my daughter’s grades and assignments before we talk about them in the car on the way home, and I can send her mother notes from the meetings at school, when she’s off travelling, so that when she talks with Miss Lovely she has another view about how things went down.
I dont think grandma need worry, too much. Now, if she becomes an subject of interest on Snapchat, she may regret ever mentioning communication. Bless her!
When I went to bed, I left grandma and grandpa sitting in front of the TV watching a rather violent film. I’m worried about their eyes. 🙂 The items shipped from Florida made the new house look homely, as did the items delivered by boat from Inagua.
Jamaica: Political Economy 