We live in a more complex and exciting world now, a world that is constantly in motion. We can get up in New York today and Paris tomorrow, Amsterdam the next day and Beijing a couple of days later. We have achieved something amazing. For centuries, most people spent their lives in their birthplace, and those that left home were considered adventurers if not actually crazy. Now, more of us choose to relocate and to travel; we can get to destinations within hours that would have required days to reach in the past.
As in every revolution, however, there is a downside. We are social beings; we bond with others, and we need to keep those bonds alive. As we move through the world, we leave behind friends, family, workmates, and others we miss, and we wish to continue sharing our lives with them. Luckily, we enjoy several solutions to this problem. The telecommunication revolution, especially the Internet, gives us a generous array of tools for communicating with our loved ones, no matter where we are.
Until only a few decades ago, making long distance calls was almost a nightmare. We had to talk to central operators and wait interminably before finally hearing (poorly) the voices of our loved ones. Now, we can speak directly with almost anyone, with high quality sound transmission both ways, at accessible prices. Tools such as Voxofon.com allow us to create a local number from any part of the planet so, for example, in Barcelona we can receive calls from Argentina that are billed as local calls.
Smartphones radically change the way we communicate. Simply by downloading an application, we can hold in our hands the ability to contact, in a matter of seconds, a person located miles away.
Today, we do not need to be in the same room or even in the same city to feel close to someone. The new communication technologies close distances that used to seem infinite. Thanks to the tools offered by the Internet, we can create new habits of communicating, new patterns of sharing, and new approaches to of nurturing our relationships. Yes, we can be miles apart and still feel close.
