Songkran Holiday Time - Time to connect and share photos with friends and family

With the local holiday season around the corner, Thai families will not have to fear that their traveling loved ones will lose touch with them. A recent poll by Microsoft shows that Thai people have embraced technology to stay in touch with family members and to share photos in particular. The research conducted on MSN polled more than 3,700 people in seven countries across Asia, including Thailand, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Vietnam. 

 

95% of the Thai respondents block time in their daily holiday agenda to connect with their family. Half of the Thais (51%) spend 15 to 30 minutes each day to communicate with remote loved ones, and 14% of the Thai people even spend more than 2 hours per day to stay in touch with family members. Asked what kind of information they are most likely to share, 45% of the Thai holiday goers chose photos. One in five Thais (20%) chose status updates as the most often shared content with family.

 

Technology strengthens family ties

The survey also revealed that Thai people have strong faith in technology’s ability to help connect their families. 84% of respondents felt that technology had a positive impact on their family relationships. 16% of the respondents even went so far as to rate the impact of technology on their family as “very positive”. This is in line with the Asian average.

 

Birathon Kasemsri Na Ayudhaya, Managing Director for Microsoft (Thailand) Limited, said, “The findings show that technology has become a central part of our daily lives, also when on holiday. Thai families are big believers that technology helps them to communicate better and it is obvious from the rate of adoption, that everyone from young kids to grandparents is finding technology easier to use.”

 

The rise of internet-based communication

While the instant gratification of the telephone is still very popular (67%) across Asia, the younger generation is shifting to internet-based communication. In the 14-24 age group, 27% of the surveyed Asians said they use technology such as email, instant messaging, social networks and video chat as their number one method of communicating with family.

 

When it came to improving family relationships, the survey revealed that 66% of Thai respondents are likely to teach a family member how to use the internet just so they can “stay in touch regularly”, while 33% do so to “share multimedia content with them”.  

 

Birathon Kasemsri Na Ayudhaya continued, “At Microsoft our focus is on delivering technology that makes it easier for families to stay together. Tools like Windows Live Messenger, SkyDrive and Photo Gallery already make it a snap to share updates with your dear ones regularly. And with the growing improvements to video chat capabilities on Windows PCs and Phones, the time when we speak face-to-face on a daily basis is not far away.”