“91% of caregivers are using Facebook another 29% are using blogging sites …”
OMG I’m a tribal elder! While Facebook celebratesits 8th birthday next month, I’ve been a spouse caregiver longerthan there has been Facebook or even Google, longer than smart phones, matterof fact - longer than either cell phones or home PCs. Telephones had cords andneighbors would leave hand written notes in the door, “going to grocery storethis afternoon, call if you need something.”
“… This provides a unique opportunity for marketers trying to sell healthcare products and services generally targeted tocaregivers or for those trying to build goodwill from a Pharma corporatestandpoint.”
A century and a half ago Edgar Alan Poe asked,“Is all that we see or seem but a dream within a dream?” – Is today all that wesee or seem but an opportunity to sell?
That’s a helluva a lot of people reaching outinto cyberspace to try and find others like themselves, or trying to juggle theshrinking time for research or simply staying in touch as caregiving isolates.
Shouldn’t such phenomenal usage statistics be aunique opportunity for sharing and caring rather than marketing? Or am I simplynaïve?
Through 22 years of spouse caregiving andjuggling basically single parenting I’ve marveled in awe of the technologicaland scientific advancements of those two decades.
Yet also wondered why there are still so manycaregivers? Why does Patti still have MS? Whatever happened to dreaming ofthings that never were, and asking why not? What if … we focused instead on ‘reducing’the need for and cost of Big Pharma, health care products and services?
Am I the only one who finds it more thanstrange that the last time a disease (Polio) was defeated was before thecomputer age?
In a society where each day more people walkaround staring into smart phones and walk right into Patti’s wheelchair, I amleft wondering about the odds of hope for all that we see or seem to ever beall it could be. Caregivingly Yours, Patrick Leer
videos: www.youtube.com/daddyleer
