So I have let people talk me into installing Skype. On the positive side, I now know how I will look at age 100. On the negative side is everything else.
I don’t think I will enjoy this thing. Normally, I take walks when I talk on the phone, which is fun and it gives me exercise. With Skype, I will have to sit while talking (like I don’t do enough of that already) for the purpose of letting people see me look completely disfigured. Yay.
Something tells me I will be uninstalling it soon.
And now I need to go spend some time in front of a mirror to reassure myself that I don’t look like a creature from a different galaxy. You need to have a much greater psychological resilience than mine to use this thing on a regular basis.
Clarissa's Blog 
When you do the skype thing, get a stand alone lamp and put it just in front of your computer, that way you will not look so old.
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It just occurred to me that maybe I can turn this to my advantage by getting people to feel extremely sorry for me. “This is how life has mistreated me. . .”, I will say. 🙂
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Only talk to people with a landline. I don’t have Skype, but I have had friends call me on it from all over the world free of charge. Also, can’t you disable the video part? It does not work if the person you are talking to has an ordinary phone anyway.
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Skype is great for keeping in contact with people in other countries. It’s completely free and you can share files and such things very easily.
I personally never use the webcam. Webcams creep me out; I do not like being watched, so I disable it by default. Maybe you should do the same.
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It’s not all bad – I, too use it without the webcam most of the time. It’s a tool I’ve used numerous times in the world of academia in lieu of a phone – many professors in my field seem to prefer it… And it’s great for conference calls and things. Though I’m really antsy on the phone and prefer to walk around and I can’t do that when using Skype, it is a very useful tool.
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And now I need to go spend some time in front of a mirror to reassure myself that I don’t look like a creature from a different galaxy. You need to have a much greater psychological resilience than mine to use this thing on a regular basis.
Or use it without video. I’ve used Skype a few times and I don’t have a web cam on my pc. I personally like it because its more reliable than a cell phone (dropped cell phone calls in the middle of good conversation piss me off) and also if the conversation leads into something that calls for a quick search of the net then you’re already at your pc (which will almost always have a faster net connection than your cell).
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You don’t have to use the video on skype, you can do voice only (just turn off the video symbol somewhere in the lower part of the screen).
It may also work for talking to your niece: my nephew is now 2.5 years old and he loves talking to “Pika in computer” as he calls it. 🙂
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Oh and I also often use it for international collaborations, it’s better and faster to talk via skype than exchange endless emails about who is going to do what and what is the status of everyone’s task. Especially if you do a conference call with several people online. Then I normally use it without video, of course.
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It’s good for job interviews, that’s true. When I was on the job market, I would have definitely preferred skype to phone interviews. Only no one was offering any.
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If you have a smartphone you can do your walks and still talk with Skype. I have an old smartphone connected to the WIFI so I can walk all around the apartment that I use exclusively for that purpose, but you can pay a 3G connection and go wherever you want, still cheaper than a long distance call.
I only sit in front of the computer and use the video if it’s a business meeting or for online language courses.
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I don’t need it to save money because on my cell phone plan I have an endless number of minutes to talk to Canada. I just installed it because people want to see me. Why, I ask, why? 🙂
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I use skype. I don’t like the phone where I cannot see the person I’m talking with.
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Curious. I do not believe in “body langauge”, most likely because I have never been able to decipher it, so I prefer that I have audio only in many conversations, so that people will realize that they need to use the magic of LANGUAGE to communicate with me. Gestures, etc., are too easily misinterpreted. Words, used with mathematical precision, and of course proper grammar, convey meaning far more reliably, as far as I am concerned.
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I’m sure you are right–about your own preferences.
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Oh great, one of those. Dog help me when the time comes that the video conference is part of the personnel screening.
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As an autistic, I find phone interviews a screaming torture. I can’t make out half of what people are saying, I never know when it’s my turn to speak or to stop speaking, I never know how to determine whether the conversation is going well, and I’m distracted by noises on the other side of the line to the point where I forget my own name.
I hate phone interviews.
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I must not be “visual.” I would think I was: I like views, settings, visual richness, and so on. Yet I prefer radio to tv, consider that the beauty of the phone is hearing voice only.
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I skype my small niece every weekend for a brief chat – at her age it’s an easier way for her to focus on the conversation and she can show me her latest ‘things’, cards she’s made, demonstrate her drumming etc.
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As others have noted, Skype can be used with or without video. Living outside the states, it’s very useful to call friends in the States either via their Skype connections (free) or via their regular phones (practically free). Skype provides, very cheaply, a regular phone number in California and folks can call us using that for whatever long distance charges they (rarely) have to pay to their land line or cellular service provider.
Clarissa says,
Just as speaking with someone face-to-face can avoid that problem, so can use of the Skype video feature.
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