You’ve made it through the worst of weeks. You’ve crawled out of the dark hole in the library basement that you’ve spent too much time in over the past 168 hours. You signed your name on the last exam and headed back to your dorm to find a different kind of torture. The hallways are cluttered with drying racks and thawing refrigerators. The dorm Facebook page is covered in requests for boxes, tape and could that one person please return the missing top from the laundry room? And then comes the tearful goodbyes. From significant others, to your friends going abroad, to the friend who lives an hour away and you’ll probably see over break, saying goodbye is never fun. So here are some ways that you can stay attached at the hip over the next month.
1. Google Hangout
There are so many different ways to video chat these days. Google Hangout is great because you can message the whole squad at once without any crazy usernames or much work at all. And since everyone is guaranteed to have a school email account that is compatible, no one has to go to the trouble of making an account.
2. Snapchat Group Message
The recently released feature on the app allows you to send and receive Snapchats with a large group of people. Now rather than having 20 different conversations about the same few snaps, the whole group can get in on the fun.
3. Rabbit
Does your group of friends have a weekly date on the futon to watch your favorite TV show? Whether it’s The Bachelor or American Horror Story, the ultimate betrayal these days is watching the group show without the squad. Rabbit allows you to watch or listen to anything you can find on the internet simultaneously without any of the awkward timing issues with one person’s video two seconds behind everyone else’s. And you get to video chat while you watch so no one will miss out on the reactions or the post episode dissection of the plot.
4. Miranda
Friend group span time zones? No problem. The app Miranda allows you to keep track of the time in different places so you don’t accidentally call your roommate in the middle of the night. Even better, you can set calendar events for the best time to video chat.
5. Couple
Anyone in a relationship knows that the worst part of any break is spending time apart. The app Couple has a ton of features that allow you to stay connected over the holiday season. From video chat to live sketching, there are so many ways to keep the romance going. The cutest feature, ThumbKiss, sends a little vibration when you and your partner touch your phone screens in the same place.
At Notre Dame we talk about having a Home under the Dome, so when we go home for the holidays we actually end up leaving a lot behind. Hopefully these apps will allow you to stay in touch with all those fantastic people you get to see every day at school.
Happy Holidays! XOXOX HCND
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