A ping during the holidays can make a difference.
This time of year is a time to reconnect. Family and friends come home for the holidays, sometimes traveling great distances to see loved ones they’ve been missing. But as we come together, we might also find ourselves thinking back to those who aren’t around.
Although we are focused on spending time with one another, we may find ourselves more glued to our phones than usual—snapping pics, calling faraway friends, and texting well wishes.
Social media and technology can help us bring everyone together, even when we cannot gather in person.
Writer Duff McDonald shared a sweet way to look at how technology can build connection:
“But I was also posting them for myself. I only have my daughter with me two out of every 14 days, and I miss her every single day that she is not with me. It’s painful. What Instagram has allowed me to do is to employ a kind of digital physics, to warp my experience of space and time in my favor. In the offline world, I spend precious hours with her and then she disappears. But online, she is with me again when I post, and then again each time I receive a notification that someone has reacted to that post. It’s like the universe sending me an echo of the moment.”
