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Recently, a friend showed me her mobile phone, with a despairing sigh. The screen was a mosaic of photos of a goggle-eyed baby, taken from every conceivable angle, sometimes holding chirpy, handwritten messages. “It’s overwhelming my inbox!” she muttered, explaining that four months earlier she had become a grandmother to the infant, who lived in a different city. A decade ago, that would have meant she only saw the baby every month — say, over a holiday meal. 最近，一位朋友带着一声绝望的叹息，把她的手机给我看。屏幕上是一个睁大眼睛的婴儿各个角度照片的拼接图，有的照片还附带了快活的手写信息。“这塞满了我的收件箱！”她嘟囔着，解释说屏幕上是她那4个月前刚出生的孙子。孩子和父母在另一个城市生活。若是换到10年前，她只能一个月见到孩子一次，比如在节日聚餐的时候。 But not in 2017. In the past month, the doting parents have taken to dispatching baby photos to all their friends and family on a daily basis. And now — to her utter bewilderment — my friend has been asked to send text messages to the infant. The idea is that these “texts” can be posted online to show that the grandparents are constantly thinking about their new grandson, and thus enable the family to “connect”. “It’s crazy,” she giggled, explaining that she didn’t want to cause offence but could not quite bring herself to send texts to a four-month-old. “What do I do?” | 
