How VoIP Closed the Gap of Personal Communication

When it comes to historical significance, most would contend that the peak of communications technology was the telegraph or the telephone. The telegraph was the very first machine that allowed us to think of information as instantly transferable. It no longer had to be tucked away elegantly in a parcel, strapped to the back of a horse. We could transform a thought into just a few fragments of energy and transfer it along phone lines.

While these paradigm shifts were of great importance, another huge shift happened over the past decade or so that it seems a lot of us didn't even notice. This is the rise of Voice over IP communication or VoIP. Ever heard of Skype? Then you know what I'm talking about.

Skype, and many of the identical services like it, provide a way to easily connect with and actually see the person you're talking to. Like the video phones in The Jetsons, they give you a window into the facial expressions and room of the other person, creating a face-to-face conversation over long distances. While conversations over just voice are fine and dandy and were clearly very important on a technological level, Skype allows for a recreation of local, immediate conversation. It's much more intimate.

This opens up a lot of possibilities! Long distance relationships are infinitely easier, whether you're a couple hours away or an entire hemisphere. Doing interviews with someone becomes easier as you can see their hand gestures as they explain an important concept or their facial expressions as they attempt to inflect a certain tone. Parents with newborn children can call up the grandparents, creating those early, important visual interactions with family members despite them being on the other side of the nation. So many social possibilities are entertained just by this simple technological shift.

These are the little things we so often forget about when we keep our heads strapped forward, always looking to the newest thing. Parts of our social lives have changed dramatically due to technology, but we barely give thought to it because it seems like such a natural change. Video calls fit so naturally into so many of our lives, we don't really have to stress the innovation. I think that's a mistake! It's just another example of progress as our world continues to turn.