Stay in touch with loved ones overseas – and save money

In this busy and hectic world, it’s often really difficult to stay in touch with those dearest to us. To start with, most of us work longer hours. And even when at home, work intrudes upon us in the form of email, blackberries and mobile phones.

So we’re busier, but as if that’s not hard enough, we’re also more spread out. These days its not unusual to have friends and family spread all over the world. So even if you had the time to call your loved ones, you’ve now got to negotiate the various timezones, and the cost of staying in touch!

The great thing about the Internet is that it is also an enabler of communications. Using the Internet, you can stay in touch with your loved ones in new and different ways. And the best thing is these methods are all free. So why pay for international phone calls, when there are better, and cheaper ways to do it?

Here’s some of the most popular ways.

EMAIL Almost everybody uses email these days. What’s not to love? Your message is sent almost instantly. You can send them as often as you like – so if you like, you can write a monthly saga, or a daily reminder. Email also has the benefit of snail mail in that it isn’t instant two-way communication. You can think over what you’re typing, and re-read it to make sure it says exactly what you mean it to say. You can also easily manage your messages, so that you can store them for posterity, or forward them to friends. You can have an intimate one-on-one in your email, or you could send the same message to all your friends. Best of all, using email is free. The downside of email is that you probably have too much of it! How to prioritise all the various emails in your inbox? Sure, you’d love to read all those Christmas newsletters your friends have sent, but there’s no time! Another problem is that you can’t ensure that somebody has read your message, nor that they reply to it. Say you are having problems with your television – do you want to talk to somebody over the phone and know that your problem is being resolved? Or are you happy to send off an email and hope that somebody reads it and that they will get back to you? In the same way, sometimes you need to know somebody has got the message, and in those circumstances, email is not good enough.

SKYPE The phone has been the most natural (and easiest) way to keep in touch with relatives and friends overseas. Costs are getting cheaper everyday, and nothing beats the convenience of having a handset that you can just talk into and it always works. But there are always alternatives. Skype is a piece of software that you can install on your computer, and will allow you to talk to others who have also installed the software, using the computer microphone and speakers. Skype is so popular, that it is now the world’s largest international voice carrier. There are many reasons for these including: 1. Skype is free, and always has been. 2. Skype allows you to have a call with more than one person at a time. Do you want to talk to both your parents and all your siblings at the same time? Not a problem. And yes, still free. 3. Skype allows you to make video calls. So now you can not only hear them, you can see them too. And yes, still free. 4. You don’t have to worry about writing down people’s phone numbers, nor update them every time they move. With Skype, you just double-click that person’s name, and you can talk to them. Skype is changing how people communicate with the integration of voice and IM (Instant Messaging) into one application. Talk when you want and type when you want, and switch between the two as you wish, seamlessly.

INSTANT MESSAGING Instant messaging, or ‘chatting’, is text-based real-time communication with somebody else using a software application installed on your computer. Some well known examples are MSN Messenger, Google Talk and Yahoo Messenger. Instant messaging allows you ‘connect’ to other friends who are using the same software. It enables us to know others’ web presence – which means that we know when somebody is online or not. If your contact is online, you will be able to type them messages, and they will see it immediately. And if they choose, they can type a message back to you, and you’ll receive it instantly. Instant messaging is great for a very quick conversation that does not require voice communication. It has the benefit of instant response, so you know the other person has heard your message and you know their feedback. However, if you have a more complicated message, you should probably try calling them, or even better using Skype. Almost all instant messaging applications also offer a similar service to Skype, so that’s another option as well!

SOCIAL NETWORKING Social Networks are the big breakthrough of the 21st century. The concept is radically different to what has gone before. A social network is a network of people with whom you have a relationship. Tools like Facebook and Twitter allow you to identify who those people are in your social network. If you subscribe to somebody  in Facebook, you become their ‘follower’. People update their Facebook/Twitter pages with latest information about themselves – for example, they may want to let you know that their kids just got married, or that they finally sold their house. If you are their follower, you will be notified on your Facebook/Twitter page. Facebook allows you share any amount of information, including photos and videos. Twitter on the other hand is more limited and only allows you to share 128 characters of text. Both of these networks are incredibly popular, with Facebook grossing over 500 million users, making it the 3rd largest (virtual) population in the world.

These are just some of the ways that you can use the Internet to stay in touch with your loved ones. The best thing about these methods is that they fit into our hectic lifestyle, and allow us to manage an ever increasing and distributed set of relationships. However, it should be noted that there is no substitute for personal interactions, so the writer recommends that you should still get out and meet people in the real world!