Keeping in Touch

March 17th, 2009 | Categories: Friends, Technology | 3 Comments

I have friends from all over the world as a result of moving around different countries growing up. While I have lost touch with many of them, I manage to talk to most of them on a semi-regular basis thanks to various social networking sites, email, and other technologies. Still, it’s hard not to be with all the people I want to be with, but being able to keep in touch has helped a lot.

When I moved from Delaware, USA, to Perth, Australia, I was eleven, and the latest technological development was email. Not everyone I knew had email, and even less knew how to use it1. Needless to say, I lost touch with all of my friends from Delaware. It’s only been in the last few months that I’ve started reconnecting with them, mostly via Facebook. Most of my friends from high school in both Perth and Chicago use Facebook now (some are using Twitter as well), so that has been immensely helpful in keeping in touch with all my friends.

Facebook and email are what I usually use to keep in touch with my friends that live overseas. For my friends that live in the US, not only do I use Facebook and email, but I also make phone calls a lot as well as send texts. I am the champion of long phone calls, as Roanne can attest to, and I think that a phone call is the next best thing if you can’t see someone in person for a face-to-face conversation. And even though I’m not a fan of texting, if there’s a special circumstance with a particular individual, I’ll break all of my texting rules and happily text away to keep in touch2.

Honestly, I don’t know what I would do without all of the various methods of keeping in touch that are available these days. As much as I love to travel, I still like maintaining a connection to all the places I’ve visited and all the people I’ve met, especially those that have had a big impact on my life. Even though I may get a little slack about keeping in touch from time to time, I strive to maintain contact with all of those that are important to me, regardless of distance. After all, since there are so many options of how to keep in touch nowadays, there’s almost no excuse not to!

  1. Remember, my friends and I were eleven. And while eleven year olds are coding and such now, that wasn’t the case when I was that age! [↩]
  2. I don’t go as far as send texts when I am in the middle of a conversation with someone else, though. I still think that’s ridiculously rude. [↩]

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3 Responses to “Keeping in Touch”

  1. Olga says:
    March 17, 2009 at 9:12 am

    Argh, I hate the fact that people text when they’re having a conversation with someone else. It’s a big insult as far as I’m concerned, as though they’re SO bored with talking to you that they must answer the text that has just arrived…

    Reply
  2. Rosier says:
    March 17, 2009 at 11:52 am

    I’m actually thankful for the fast-developing technology, but to be honest, the trend of e-mailing and such came a bit late in my case. I left Slovenia when I was 9 and that was the time when e-mailing became somewhat known around my age, but none of us could really use it.
    Thus, when leaving, I didn’t ask for anyone’s e-mail – since most of my friends didn’t have one, anyway. I did ask for my best friend’s sister’s, though, and this way we could keep in touch.

    Now, texting is quite useful for me, since I hate speaking on the phone. It’s just not my thing. And then, there’s Facebook: I keep in touch with my English teacher from my (Hungarian) elementary school. Or, something like that. I haven’t signed in since months, and although I know how rude that is, I just can’t bring myself to do it. It turned out to be a burden, after all.

    Reply
  3. Lauren says:
    March 17, 2009 at 8:47 pm

    It’s really nice that you got to keep in touch with so many of your friends. :) I really adore technology for being able to keep everyone in touch with the people they are close to.

    I really like the opportunities for meeting new people as well. As long as you understand how to be smart, it’s nice being able to come in contact with people normally far out of your reach, I think. :) As soon as I was accepted to my college, I was able to join a Facebook group and connect with my future fellow-classmates. Even now, I already have a friend whom I think I will be quite close to, pending on actually meeting face-to-face. :P

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