Happy Families is a British card game invented in the 1850s that
is still played today. The goal is to collect as many complete sets
of a four-member family, such as Mr Pint, Mrs Pint, Master Pint,
and Miss Pint. Over a century on, this family grouping seems
rather quaint. What it means to be part of a family today, let
alone a happy family, is quite different. Besides the stereotypical
family of 2.4 children, there are many other varieties, including
one-parent families and children living together from different
marriages. Most family groupings have a desire to stay in touch
with each other and to look after one another. At the same time,
there are ever-increasing demands on a family member’s life,
from needing to work or study all day to having to maintain a
network of perhaps a hundred online friends.
New technologies are proliferating that enable people to live
both their own busy social and working life while enabling them
to take an active part in their family life. For example, in the
1980s, AT&T in the United States popularised the slogan ‘reach
out and touch someone’, promoting the use of landline phones
as a way of American family members staying in touch with
each other. AT&T had noted how the distances that separated
family members were getting ever greater. Twenty years on,
there is little doubt that the desire to be in touch is as great as
ever, though there are many other communication technologies
besides the landline phone to support it. The huge uptake of
broadband, and the mushrooming of Internet cafes all over
the world has enabled many families to stay in touch more
frequently than ever before. ‘Skyping’ has become a popular
pastime; even when on holiday family members can talk to one
another via a computer-based video connection.
Happy Families is a British card game invented in the 1850s that
is still played today. The goal is to collect as many complete sets
of a four-member family, such as Mr Pint, Mrs Pint, Master Pint,
and Miss Pint. Over a century on, this family grouping seems
rather quaint. What it means to be part of a family today, let
alone a happy family, is quite different. Besides the stereotypical
family of 2.4 children, there are many other varieties, including
one-parent families and children living together from different
marriages. Most family groupings have a desire to stay in touch
with each other and to look after one another. At the same time,
there are ever-increasing demands on a family member’s life,
from needing to work or study all day to having to maintain a
network of perhaps a hundred online friends.
New technologies are proliferating that enable people to live
both their own busy social and working life while enabling them
to take an active part in their family life. For example, in the
1980s, AT&T in the United States popularised the slogan ‘reach
out and touch someone’, promoting the use of landline phones
as a way of American family members staying in touch with
each other. AT&T had noted how the distances that separated
family members were getting ever greater. Twenty years on,
there is little doubt that the desire to be in touch is as great as
ever, though there are many other communication technologies
besides the landline phone to support it. The huge uptake of
broadband, and the mushrooming of Internet cafes all over
the world has enabled many families to stay in touch more
frequently than ever before. ‘Skyping’ has become a popular
pastime; even when on holiday family members can talk to one
another via a computer-based video connection.
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