Technology and connection

So tonight's pondering is on the topic of technology and connection. And the position that I am going to argue is that no communications technology is inherently bad. Tonight I watched the Pentatonix Christmas special with my sister and her two kids, my beloved niece and nephew... me in my kitchen in Edmonton and them in their living room in Los Angeles, watching the same TV. Tonight I "hung out" with two friends via Facebook Messenger, had important and profound (if brief) conversations with them, one of whom I see in person weekly and the other not in over twenty-five years. Tonight I let people whom I care about know that I was thinking about them, in every corner of Edmonton, in Calgary, in Ottawa, in LA. I can, pretty much at any time, see pretty much any human being in existence, pretty much anywhere on the planet, in full colour and stereo sound, by tapping a piece of glass. A piece. Of. Glass. So no, I don't worry too much when my daughter and I are sitting next to each other and have our noses in our phones. No, we're not losing touch with reality. No, we don't spend too much time online. We are spending time connecting with other people, connecting with our fellow humans even more than we ever could before, across vast distances. And for that I am very thankful. It is simply magic. Yes, you can go overboard. Yes, there is an unhealthy level that you could fall into. Yes, it ain't perfect. But I am more rich for the people with whom I can now connect than not. It's not about how, it's about who.