Social media helps far-flung families connect this holiday season

Without platforms like Facebook, Skype, and Google +, it would be much harder for some far-flung extended families to stay connected this holiday season.

By Gloria Goodale, Staff writer / December 23, 2011

One-year-old Zoey Calhoun watches her mother's face on the computer screen as Ashley Calhoun appears on a Skype call, in 2009, in Rockton, Illinois.

Stacey Wescott /Chicago Tribune/MCT

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Los Angeles

Gathering family for the holidays isn't what it used to be.

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And that's a good thing for Carol Meerschaert, of Paoli, Penn. Ms. Meerschaert is one of eight siblings and has 15 nieces and nephews, some with additional spouses and children. Members of the clan live in California, Washington, D.C., Washington state, Michigan, Florida, Pennsylvania, and Montana.

For Meerschaert this holiday season, social media is the gift that keeps on giving. Without platforms like Facebook, Skype, and Google +, it would be much harder for the extended brood to stay connected.

“Even if we were all in the same room you would not get the first person accounts of everyone talking at once,” Meerschaert says. “I love the photos, links to articles that speak to us, songs, videos, and more that we share online.” And just in case she was feeling her familiy wasn’t big enough already, she says that Facebook has reconnected her with many of her 48 cousins as well.

And there are so many online options to bring us closer together this year, says Anthony Rotolo, a professor at Syracuse University iSchool in New York. These options range from the more familiar, such as Facebook, to brand new sites such as Path – the exclusively mobile social network designed to be shared only with one’s closest friends – and Kondoot, which debuted in the US on Dec. 12 and is a social media tool that allows free, live online broadcasting.

“This year, my family holidays have relied on Skype and Apple's FaceTime to bring far away loved ones to the table,” Mr. Rotolo says via e-mail. Social media has been a boon for military families too, he points out, allowing families separated by overseas deployments to stay connected. Anyone who is unable to fly home due to cost or distance “will be able to experience gift-giving [and] Christmas morning with the kids, and even the dinner table through social video technologies like these, or the newer Google Hangouts, for example,” he adds.