From Boomer to Zoomer in 70 Years


… or maybe in just 70 days. Soon after I began sheltering in place because I am a Baby Boomer and hence in a vulnerable category for infection by the new coronavirus, I was introduced to ZOOM because of a meeting I needed to attend. It then dawned on me that I could use this program myself for one-on-one conversations with friends … and in particular over a meal, just as if I were having them over for dinner.
I suggested this to a friend and we tried it out. It worked like a charm. Each of us had a talking head perched opposite him on his respective dining room table while we ate and chatted. Of course it was strictly potluck! Although on a date I would be able to order a special meal from a restaurant to be delivered to the lady’s doorstep.
Then it occurred to me that I could use the program to talk to people who were not local. Indeed, I immediately went for broke and arranged chats with two people I know in Australia – literally on the opposite side of the globe from where I live! And the medium was so natural and welcoming, especially in the midst of such unprecedented social isolation, that our chats went on for hours: one of them for 6 hours!!! … with no desire to stop except that the Aussie needed to get to bed at his 2 a.m. to get up for work at 5 a.m. (This was with a fellow philosopher, you see, for whom talking is like breathing.)
And in fact the philosophical chats have been so delightful and productive that I’ve begun to record some of them and post them on YouTube.
Where will this end? All I can tell you now is that I have become more social under “lockdown” than I was before the pandemic. Hats off to ZOOM!

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