Going to new places means meeting new people and leaving old friends behind, but the world is becoming ever smaller with the help of recent technology. Because of this, the ability to keep in touch with people from different places around the country and the world has increased.
Staying in contact with friends who are traveling or studying abroad in faraway places for an extended period of time is much easier now, through apps like Facebook’s Messenger, GroupMe, WhatsApp, and Snapchat. Having used all three during my trip abroad, and constantly using them to keep up with friends who either live or study abroad, I've found that working around the differences in time zones can be difficult. With friends in places like England, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, and (soon to be) France, figuring out the times is crucial.
There are definitely a few drawbacks to having friends in multiple time zones and many different places around the world. One negative is having to coordinate hours or days in advance for Skype calls, since your schedules do not always line up. Multiple time zones also means catching friends at awkward times, depending on how far away they are.
A five hour time difference isn’t quite as bad as a 14 or 18 hour one, but then you actually have to think about what day it is when you do talk to them, since they can already be living the next day.
Another difficult aspect is only being able to Skype with them, instead of actually being with them, which makes it hard when friends are having difficult days or weeks and you can’t be there for them. I've also learned to put my phone on silent during the night, to avoid being woken up by messages from friends in different time zones, but it’s nice to wake up to messages from friends.
Even though there may be a great distance between you and your friends, and possibly many time zones, there are some perks that make the many miles easier to bear. One perk is the time zones themselves. Multiple friends in many time zones means that someone is probably awake if you want to talk, even if it’s 2:00 a.m. where you are and 4:00 p.m. where they are.
After doing this for a while, you get really good at determining what time it is in different places, which is very helpful for figuring out times to Skype. After my time abroad in Europe, I have gotten a lot better at reading military time, which also makes determining times in different places easier. Thanks to the ease of communication, pictures are also easily sent back and forth, so I can get awesome pictures from my friends who are in awesome places.
So, while it may be tough to be in different time zones and away from friends, by knowing that you can easily communicate with them through messaging apps and video chats, the distance is reduced to a computer screen as you count down the days until you can see each other again.
