Up until last year, I'd say that my direct family was easy to get in touch with, even though we only used "old fashioned" means of communicating. It used to be that my parents and my sister were only 45 minutes away, and all in one place. If I wanted to reach them, I generally called, and we could meet in person as often as I liked. Sure I'd send some emails back and forth with my Dad, but that was about the extent of our online presence.
Now that has all changed. My sister has gone off to college a few hours drive away, and my parents up and moved overseas. Which is all great, it's mostly interesting to see how this displacement affected our interactions. These days, my parents are on Facebook more than I am, chatting with friends back in the U.S. It's rare that I ever talk to my parents and my sister at the same time, and we haven't been in the same room in months. We all had to upgrade so we could take advantage of Skype in place of face to face meetings. All of this has changed our communication network. Instead of everyone telling everyone else what is going on with their lives, a new network has taken it's place.
These days each of us will still only update another family member once, and its up to that person to spread the news. For example, I'll chat with my sister about an upcoming hiking trip, and assume she'll pass the information on at some point to my parents. The only downside is when a few people get busy and holes occur, and a month later you find out some news never reached the full network.
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