It’s important to spend times with friends and family. But if they live on the other side of the world, it’s not as easy as a coffee date. Historically, phone calls internationally were expensive and that was another barrier to communication.

With the advent of the internet, most of these problems have been solved. There are a variety of distance communication tools in this digital age. Today, we’re going to talk about how you can use the internet for getting in touch with your friends or family.

You will be able to interact with them and close the communication gap between you and them. Although the communication is between screens, it’s close enough.

Here are 3 ways you can communicate with your friends on the internet.

VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol):  VOIP can be thought of as telephoning over the internet except with voice conference software. Skype, Facebook Messenger, and Google Hangouts are good examples of these. VOIP programs don’t charge you a cent for making voice calls to other users. You can simply add their username to your friend’s list and hit the call button. You will be able to talk with them electronically and you won’t be billed for that. Additionally, you will be able to talk as long you like.

Instant Messaging:  Instant messaging or live texting is another way to get in touch with friends. You can use platforms such as Facebook, Whatsapp, Viber and other such services to text your friends instantly. Instant messaging is very popular since you can type whatever you want, send and share files, audio, video while typing in text. You can even add emojis and smileys and give the conversation more layers of meaning. You can stimulate your creativity and imagination by making interactions more fun this way. Think of it as text-talking instead of talking with your voice.

E-Mail:  If you’ve got a friend half a world away, and you think postal charges are getting expensive, maybe you should try email. There are tons of email services ranging from Gmail, Outlook, MSN, and much more. You can send and exchange emails with each other. The best part is that emails sent are received instantly within a matter of minutes and can be saved, archived, starred, favorited, and viewed later, unlike regular mail. You also save money and paper since you don’t have to worry about writing with ink and making multiple trips to the post office.

Email is superior to IM and phone calls in that the person doesn’t have to respond immediately.

You simply register with an email ID with a registered email service, compose a mail, add the necessary files (can’t exceed the 25MB limit) and fire away.