Written by Alex Fisher

Thumbnail & Banner Photo by Alexander Shatov on Unsplash

Many university students may find the summer months to be a lonely time. It can be challenging to return home or watch your friends leave, no longer seeing them on a daily basis during the four months between academic years. Even for those who elect to stay on campus, most student societies cease their activities, and ResLife or other on-campus events are severely reduced (though you can keep an eye out for any upcoming events here). Not being able to spend time with your closest friends might lead to feelings of isolation or sadness due to the loss of this important aspect of your life, while facing the limitations posed by distance and any time zone differences.

There are several solutions to curb that loneliness, however. Staying in touch and talking with your friends during the summer can easily be accomplished nowadays, even from different countries. So long as you have access to the internet, and are able to use at least one of a number of free apps, then keeping up contact with the ones you care about is easier than ever, no matter the distance.

The first app, Discord, is one you may already be familiar with if you are a member of student societies. Its use lies in helping people spend time together despite long distances Discord is a very versatile tool, allowing you to create servers with friends, share messages and pictures with many people at once, and even have voice or video calls. These servers are also highly customizable, allowing you to create multiple channels for different purposes. For example, you could create a channel devoted entirely to talking about a certain topic, another one solely for sharing pictures of your pets, and a third simply for general conversations. Multiple voice channels can be added to the server and people can drop in and out at any time, so that anyone not currently in the call does not have to hear the conversation.

That is not all Discord can do, however. It also has a friends feature, and allows for direct messages or calls between just two people or small groups, for the utmost privacy. You are also able to share your screen, which is perfect for party games like the various Jackbox Party Packs, allowing everyone to see and hear the game so that they may fully participate. While there is an option for a paid subscription which provides extra capabilities, the core features of Discord—including all of the above and more—are completely free. Whether you’re partaking in an online book club, hosting a game night, or simply talking to your friends, Discord will certainly be an immensely useful app.

Another virtual activity that can be done with far-away friends is group watch parties. Many friend groups enjoy watching a video, show, or movie all together at the same time, then reacting to and discussing it. There are numerous services which can help facilitate this, such as the aptly-named website WatchParty. Each one will offer slightly different features, so it may take a bit of digging for you to find the perfect one. WatchParty, in particular, is popular because of its wide range of features, such as synchronizing videos, sharing screens, video calls, file sharing, queuing videos, and a virtual web browser. Even better, nearly all of this site’s features are available without the need to purchase a subscription or even create a free account.

While most of these watch party services will only work with sites like YouTube due to digital rights management (DRM) controls, there are some which also work for websites like Netflix or Disney+. One such service is Teleparty, which functions as a browser extension that allows people to synchronize their movies and shows. It also grants the ability to pause these shows so that nobody has to rewind or compare timestamps. The caveat is that Teleparty only works if everyone joining is subscribed to the same service. For example, if you have a Netflix and an Amazon Prime subscription, but your friend only has Netflix, then Teleparty would only work for the two of you to watch Netflix together, and would not work for Prime. This is because Teleparty only controls the video player, and does not actually provide shared access to these services. Furthermore, some features, which are considered basic by other apps, such as voice chat and video calls, are only available through a subscription with Teleparty. Therefore, it would best be used in conjunction with something like Discord, in order to take advantage of both services’ free offerings. Overall, using services like WatchParty and Teleparty are not the ultimate solution to spending time with your friends, but they can be great tools when used together with other services like Discord.

Less about directly spending time together and more about merely staying in touch, simply using social media can help you keep up with those close to you. Familiar apps like Snapchat, Instagram or BeReal grant you a glimpse into the daily lives of your friends, which might give you some topics to discuss when you are able to have a longer conversation with them. These apps can also help somewhat with maintaining your friendships by allowing you to send reels, memes or short messages in a timely and convenient manner. While they will not fill the gap entirely, social media apps can be a great tool to stay better connected while far apart, especially when combined with some of the other methods.

Another method of spending time with someone far away, and one that any music lovers may find especially enjoyable, is to listen to music together. There are a number of ways to accomplish this, such as synchronizing YouTube playlists, but by far the easiest is to use Spotify’s Jam feature. This feature, offered by the popular music and podcast streaming service, allows you to listen to playlists with your friends by hosting a ‘Jam session’ and inviting them. Then every person in the Jam can pause the music, share their music taste by adding their own songs to the queue, or mix it up. Free users can participate too, albeit with ads and fewer features, but the person who hosts the Jam must have a Spotify Premium subscription (which if you have or plan on getting, make sure to use the student plan to save some money). With Spotify’s Jam, or any other method of listening to music with your friends, you’re able to add a soundtrack to your hangouts or passively spend time together even when distance divides you.

When separation makes things difficult, and especially when you’re away from your friends during the summer months, a sense of loneliness is to be expected. That does not mean that you have to simply accept it, however. You can still spend time with your friends thanks to the help of modern technology, with apps like Discord or Spotify allowing you to perform activities together. While scheduling may be more difficult due to time zone differences, the distance between you and your friends can melt away, at least for a few hours. Then even when you are not able to actively hang out, you can still stay in touch and keep up to date in a more passive sense using social media. Regardless of how you may wish to spend time with your long-distance friends, one thing is for sure: there is almost certainly an app for that.

Apps That Can Help You Spend Time With Long-Distance Friends

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