With so many people living half a world away from their closest relatives, social media have become as necessary as letter writing used to be, because phone calls are too expensive (unless you Skype, of course).

Unfortunately, because they still represent a small percentage of the user population, the sort of tools that facilitate access are often non-existent or prohibitively expensive. Blackberry buttons are too small (as are hearing aid controls, BTW), for example. Hopefully, as time passes, people will begin to develop tools to include rather than exclude those with fading sight and hearing or increasingly awkward digits.