Yesterday, on Christmas Eve, an outage at one of Amazon.com's service centers led to a massive failure of the NetFlix streaming service, forcing millions of families to actually visit with one another. The online home video giant's Internet streaming service, the largest in the world, has provided awkward families who do not really like each other with the perfect excuse to avoid communicating while at the same time providing the illusion of socializing through collective movie watching, and many families across Americas have grown dependent upon the service to make family gatherings bearable. But the unexpected failure of this critical service at this festive time of year, when family gatherings are the most likely than at any other time of year aside from Thanksgiving, has sadly forced everyone into a corner, with their backs up against a wall, until tragically they were forced to do the unthinkable: actually visit with their families.
But tech experts say that while both NetFlix and Amazon should be very ashamed and equally blamed for this shocking situation, it's not really entirely the fault of streaming movies that the American family has become so isolated from one another, forcing them to act out a charade of pretend affectionate pantomime. After all, isn't it really cellular telephones and social media that have trained us all to ignore each other so thoroughly during in-person face time? But despite the uncomfortable awkwardness that comes from not knowing what to say, it could be worse; for thanks in part to the miracle of modern technology, there are options for how to approach communication with extended family members when unexpected disasters like movie streaming outages occur. And of course I am speaking of social media and texting through smartphones. (You can communicate with family through your smartphone, or you can completely ignore them altogether while engaging in communications with others, both real and imagined.)
Yes, sociologists and tech gurus recommend using text messaging and Facebook updates accessed via smartphones to communicate with family if for some reason movie streaming outages occur, video games break down, etc. Communication avenues can open up with surprising clarity when people treat their family members like they are far away, despite being in the same room with them. So the next time a NetFlix outage occurs at the worst possible time, don't panic. Simply use your smartphone to communicate, and everyone will be able to handle the situation. But whatever you do, don't try to talk directly face-to-face: it is considered rude and intrusive in today's modern culture, as evidenced by how everyone eating together in restaurants always just look at their smartphones the whole time; it's how people communicate nowadays.
Here's the streaming story:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/25/net-us-companies-netflix-idUSBRE8BO06H20121225
