Betty by Gary Delainey and Gerry Rasmussen for October 27, 2023

Amateur hour.

FaceTime calls are the best way for the kids to call my husband to keep in touch. With his Alzheimer’s, a disembodied voice on the phone is just confusing. And he doesn’t read anymore, so texting is out of the question.

She’s trying to discover the allure. Good luck with that, Citizen Horn’s excellent use case excepted.

There’s definitely a generational disconnect regarding the utility of these apps. A friend’s young kids love to use Messenger calls to talk to their aunt in Georgia, see her dog, show her their new stickers, etc. Their aunt is fairly young as well. OTOH older people seem to be set in their ways — i.e. telephony should be voice only! — and refuse to see the usefulness. It’s OK, boomers, but you all are starting to sound like those old-timers back in the day, railing against transistor radios blaring that durn rock music.

I use Facetime to connect to my kids who are in France, Germany, and the Philippines. I also use it on the road to connect to my husband. But in my day to day-texting is fine as are phone calls.

Interestingly enough, the German word for cell phone is “Handy”.

Baby’s first Facetime call. :)

I almost never bother with Facetime, but I appreciated it when my mother was in hospice care, and I lived too far away to be there in person.