The most important invention in your lifetime is…

I think the first ever application to do it was Skype. Which I used so much in my teens, but that’s just because internet came very late to our home. But it was a cultural reset for me, seeing someone sitting in a remote location, maybe a hundred or thousand miles away from me.

Then came the smartphone, and for a long time we could use skype on our palms. Video calling though, EXPLODED, when WhatsApp introduced video calling. Now you did not need a separate account; you had a phone number and that’s enough to see each other. No subscription needed.

It connected lovers, family, friends from a distance, no matter how big. Messaging or hearing each other came nowhere close to seeing each other like in reality. You felt really connected for the first time ever since social media came along (you know what I mean). Slowly the other applications introduced video calling too.

Video calling helped immensely during COVID, where it was literally the only way to connect actively and visibility with other people. Zoom and Google meet became household names. People really badmouth social media nowadays, and for right reasons. But if something good came out of it, which will keep helping people to connect as it’s supposed to do even in future, it absolutely has to be video calling.

As someone living away from friends and family 95% of the time, I find it to be a blessing!