Family interaction - today and tomorrow

Good Friends - Today’s Snapshot

The Martin family and the Smith family are good friends. Mrs Smith and Mrs Martin have known each other since school and their husbands and children have got to know each other through taking holidays together, and through the regular but infrequent visits each makes to the other’s home.
Living 300 km apart now, they see each other about twice a year. One of those occasions is the weekend holiday they take together each year with other college friends. The other meeting is more ad hoc - a stolen weekend away.
In between times there may be an occasional, but long and relaxed phone call, but only following a string of “sorry I missed you” voice messages, and of course postcards from their respective holidays and birthday cards and presents arriving by post for the children – with the corresponding “thank you”, generated under duress, returning some days later.
When together, they like to ‘catch up’. The children go and play, as only children can, whilst the grown-ups sit around the kitchen table chatting, admiring each other’s holiday snaps, viewing each others videos, discussing the joys of bringing up children and of course reminiscing. As the children begin to argue, the parents have to step in and take more active part and even coordinate a game that keeps them all happy.
At Christmas, they exchange cards and round-robin letters with photos giving a summary of their year. This is normal. This is the way people live and the way people keep in touch and nurture valuable relationships.
As they leave for their own homes they always comment:
“We must do this more often.” “We must” comes the eager affirmation …

Good Friends – The TA2 Vision

The Martin family and the Smith family still meet about twice a year; but when the time comes for them to leave for their own homes, they no longer feel that the physical separation will unplug their social connection.
The Martin’s Christmas letter is now augmented by a video. Edited by the system this two-minute catch-up video is assembled from a range of video and photographs that the Martin family uploaded onto their family’s digital vault. The simple and semi-automated addition of metadata, as the files were saved, enables the system to pull out and construct a simple but effective narrative of the year which the Martin’s can then share.
The occasional phone calls are more frequent, equally relaxed but are not preceded by the string of “just-missed you” messages or “can’t talk now” apologies. The awareness systems that each is happy to activate gives a subtle and gentle indication of whether they are available for a phone call. The discreet indicators, in each house, allow phone calls to be made at appropriate times. This makes the communication process less stressful and more effective.
Game playing, a staple in the arsenal of ‘things to do’, is now something the two families can enjoy whilst separated. Since they both now have large widescreen flat panel TVs and both have broadband the two families are able to play familiar board games whilst each is in their own house. The large screen gives them eye contact with each other, and the wideband spatialised sound means the two parties can chat and tease each other casually, as if they were in the same room.
The youngest children, the only ones who are actually the same age have developed their friendship, whilst apart, by playing simple games together on their interactive easels – devices that also allow them to show Daddy their pictures whilst he is at work.