Are you living somewhere far from home and feeling alienated much of the time? Perhaps you are in the military and stationed overseas, or perhaps your job requires you to be on location in another state or even another country or continent much of the year. No matter why you are living somewhere far from home, however temporary, you can always be at home thanks to technology in the 21st Century.
Keeping up with Local News
Although you can always search the Internet for news from your hometown or national news for important events, it isn’t always the same as watching it live. Recaps are never much fun and by the time you’ve found a video of what you are looking for, it’s usually only just the highlights. Did you know there is a revolutionary new app for your computers and mobile devices that will allow you to watch your local programming live as it happens? Television online! How novel is that?
Live Streaming Television Gets Government Approval
A completely new service is just launching called VIDGO that will offer the best of what the networks have to offer as well as local broadcast programming in key markets to begin with. You can watch television live right along with your friends and family back home, even though they may be thousands of miles away at the moment. There’s nothing like watching a program and then talking it into the ground when it’s over and this you can do when streaming live television. A new concept approved by the powers that be and ready to launch.
Keeping up with the Kids
So, while you are at it discussing the latest episode of Veep or America’s Got Talent, you can be in a video chat through Facebook or Facetime and see the kids as they animatedly discuss which performer got their vote. You can talk to them about their homework, grades in school and who they are hanging with these days. You can even dish out the discipline online because you will be right there in the room with them, albeit digitally, but you will be there live all the same.
Social Media at Its Best
For life situations, this is what social media was meant to be. It truly began as a way to keep in touch with family and friends, no matter how remote, and that’s what it was in its humblest beginnings. Although it has now become a platform for everything from marketing to politics, social media, at its best, keeps you informed throughout each day of things that are going on back home. It isn’t always necessary to pick up the cell phone and call your bowling buddy or talk to your pastor about church events, because you can glance at their Tweets or Facebook posts to keep up with what everyone is doing – or not doing, as the case may be. While Twitter and Facebook are the biggest of the bunch, Instagram isn’t far behind so don’t ever feel like you’re not at home. You always are thanks to the Internet and social platforms like these.
The Next Best Thing to Home
While digital communications, video and audio, are not the same as being there face-to-face, they can help you feel less alienated while away from home. You have your choice of whether you want to communicate with friends and family or simply tune into local network news. It’s the next best thing to working a 9 to 5 in your hometown and can help you keep bread on the table and a roof over your family’s head. Now you can work thousands of miles from home but never feel very much like you’ve really left.
That’s the beauty of technology so be grateful for innovations that have brought us this far. We’re the first generation to have these advantages and thankfully, we’ll not be the last.