As video chatting gains popularity, students use it to stay in touch with siblings in college

By Rachel Boyd

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Life changed significantly for junior Lavanya Narayanan when her older sister Divya left to attend college at American University in Washington, D.C. four years ago.

Narayanan said, “It definitely was weird because the house was a lot quieter.” Although her sister was over 500 miles away, the two sisters managed to stay in touch using video chat.

“When you call someone, you can hear their voice, but the nice thing about video chat is you can see expressions,” Narayanan said.“You get to see each other, so I think video chat has helped a lot especially because D.C. is so far away.”

Narayanan’s utilization of video chat is not uncommon. According to an October 2010 Pew Research Center survey, 29 percent of Internet users ages 18 to 29 currently participate in video calls, chats or teleconferences, and this number continues to increase. The study explained that this increase is due to the addition of video-chatting services such as Skype, Google Talk and Apple Facetime in the online and smart-phone environment.

“I’ve seen that a lot of people are going to Facetime because it’s an excellent way to communicate by showing facial expressions and things like that,” Cody Lassiter, AT&T customer service representative said about Apple’s new service that allows customers to video chat using an iPhone 4, iPod touch or Mac over Wi-Fi. “I’ve noticed other (cell phone) carriers have gone to similar services as well, so I think in the future it will be an option on every carrier.”

In addition to Facetime, online chat services such as Skype can be used to communicate with a variety of people in nearly any location, from professors and psychologists in England to friends and family in Arizona and, in Narayanan’s case, a sibling in college.

“It’s a lot easier to stay in touch now than say 20 years ago,” counselor David Mikesell said. “It used to be one phone call a week, but now people who are close to each other can text or Skype with each other daily.”

Narayanan said she uses the video chat sessions with her sister just to catch up and stay updated with each others’ lives.

“I usually talk about what’s going on with me like school and friends, and she usually talks about college,” Narayanan said. “She works as well, so we’ll talk about her work. We also talk about when we plan to visit each other.”

Junior Abby Corkins said she also has weekly video chat sessions with her sister Charity, a junior at North Central University in Minneapolis.

“It’s nice to see her once in a while and just see what she looks like,” Corkins said. “She’s shown me her dorm room, and I’ve gotten to meet her roommate. She also shows me new outfits that she’s purchased and things like that.”

Besides keeping in touch, video chat can be used for a variety of things such as getting guitar lessons from a teacher in California or being taught by a teacher in another state. Following this trend, Corkins said she also uses video chat conferences with her sister as a learning experience.

“I participate in ASL (American Sign Language) Interpretation competitions, and (my sister) helps me with that,” said Corkins, whose sister studies ASL in college. “She will write the interpretation, and then she’ll teach me how to sign the signs over Skype.”

Although Corkins and Narayanan said they find video chatting to be a very useful tool, there are some exceptions to this feeling. Junior Bailey Samuelson said she has never video-chatted with her sister, Cassidy Samuelson, a senior at Purdue University.

“I don’t video chat with her because she goes to Purdue which is pretty close, so she visits almost every weekend,” Samuelson said.

The geographical factor makes video chatting an attractive venture, especially for people who are distant in location.

“I think that Divya (and I) would still talk to each other over the phone, but I think relationship-wise, we would be a little further apart just because video chat tends to bring people together with its dual opportunity of talking to someone as well as seeing them,” Narayanan said.

“If we didn’t use video chat, we probably wouldn’t be as close.”