I had a great idea today. Here’s the thought process. It occurs to me that one of the biggest problems with old folks homes is the feeling of detachment. The “folks” are only visited once in a while but I’m sure it makes their day. Most of the time they’re not aware of what’s going on with their own families.

Now take the case of children’s hospitals. Robert Wood Johnson for example has some form of game console in every room. So why not some technology in old-folks’ homes?

If you could setup a computer in a communal room that did nothing more than stream twitter feeds or Facebook statuses, the folks in the home could all get their kids and grandkids’ twitter ids and set them up on the stream!

How great would that be?

It wouldn’t take a high-powered machine. You could just throw Knoppix on there for some license-free and maintenance-free OS.

I’m also thinking you write some massive-fonted client that takes up the whole screen and scrolls the statuses marquee style so it’s visible across the room.

Pretty soon folks are seeing what’s going on in the world. Their sharing stories about each others nephews and granddaughters and so on. Best of all they’re not feeling so out of touch with their families. They know what’s going on and have something to talk about when that precious visiting time comes around.

Good idea, no?