Skype: International Friendmaker

Yesterday, my son had a playdate with my friend's son.  They showed each other their Pokemon cards.  Which wouldn't be such a big deal except my son is here in NY, and my friend and her son are in Australia.

How he do this?  Skype. I'm sure I'm the last person on Earth to discover this: but SKYPE TOTALLY ROCKS!!!

Skype - for those of you who have been living under a rock (as I was, apparently, until recently) is a FREE online video phone service that makes it possible for you to talk to and see your friends - no matter where in the world they are -- FOR FREE.  You can use Skype to call land lines, too.  For Free.  (Did I mention it's free?)

Look, I love that people know what I'm thinking and what I'm up to by reading my blog, but sometimes, I just want to see and talk to my friends. Not email, not IM, but SEE them.  Skype may still be computer based, but it's live audio and video.  When I get off a Skype call - I feel like I've had a visit.

The possibilities for my kids are endless.  Already, my son feels like he has a friend - a real friend - who lives 15 thousand miles away, but who he can visit anyway.  That SO beats the British Pen-Pal I had when I was his age.  I think we wrote to each other twice, I could barely read her handwriting, and in hindsight, I suspect that eight-year-old Emma may well have been a forty year old man. Not a pretty thought.

Which brings up another point: with video/internet calls, I know who my kid is talking to.  I see him on the screen.  Who knows who he might "talk" to in a chat room?  The real possibility that it might be some creep (though I don't let my kids into chat rooms yet, the day will come) keeps me up nights.

My kids us computers A LOT.  They love Wii, and Mini Clip, and all the toys out there that come with online components (whoever invented Webkinz, I don't know whether to salute your creativity or call for your arrest on charges of unfairly addicting my kids to expensive stuffed trinkets.)  With Skype, I feel that there isn't just a virtual social component, but a real one. 

On their next international playdate, my son's Australian friend is planning on carrying his Mom's laptop into his room so he can show my son his lego collection.

Maybe it's only because that's the kind of social interaction I truly understand - playing Lego with your friends -but I love it.  It's like I can see my son's horizon's expanding right before my eyes -- and my computer screen.  And there's no creepy undercurrent in sight.

Think about the other possibilities. Grandparents can watch their grandchildren traipse around the Himalayas (do they have internet connections in the Himalayas?  I have no idea.  But stay with me here.)  Anyway - Grandma can watch her little grandkids' Himalayan trek, live, as they're doing it.  Or say  you're on a business trip and want to show your family where you are and what you're doing...Skpe let's you do it with live video and audio.  (in short snippets - you don't want to be carrying your lap top where ever you go)

I'm sure there's some reason I shouldn't like Skype.  I hear that Google Chat is better.  But for the moment, I'm in internet love: this Skype thing has given my son an international friendship that he never, ever would have had before. A living, breathing friend that one day, he may well want to visit live. He'll travel and have someone he knows when he gets there.  I love that.

So while I limit his screen time, and Wii time, and TV time - I say Skype away!!!

Original Post to NYC Moms Blog.  Nancy Rabinowitz-Friedman writes about momming, aging, and her twenty hear quest to lose the same ten pounds at her blog, Ageless Body Timeless Mom.