Best Online Ways To Stay In Touch

Self-isolating doesn’t mean you have to go without seeing colleagues and loved ones – let tech come to the rescue

- Jane Vorster

In a time when people need to feel most connected, we’re wisely practising social distancing. But the feeling of isolation and loneliness can easily threaten to overwhelm you as the days and weeks pass – which is why we’ve checked out what your options are to stay connected to friends, family and colleagues.

Thanks to technology, with video-calling features you can see and hear the people you miss most, and help to alleviate some of the frustration that comes with being apart. And the best part is these platforms can be accessed no matter where you are, as long as you have an internet connection or data on your phone.

HOW MUCH DATA WILL YOU USE?

For a group video call with two other people you use about 1.2 gigabytes (GB) of data an hour. If you’re on a capped internet package or are using cellphone data, rather stick to voice calls – this cuts your data usage back to about 90 megabytes (MB) an hour.

BEST FOR WORK

MICROSOFT TEAMS

This platform allows you to organize people into teams. You can communicate with them in groups known as channels using the chat feature instead of emails.

Voice and/or video conference calls replace face-to-face meetings so you can still connect without being in the same room. You can also exchange documents, collaborate on files and share what’s on your screen so your co-workers can keep up to speed and give their input.

And as it’s a Microsoft product that’s part of the Office 365 package, you can coordinate your activities drawing on Microsoft tools such as Calendars, Excel and Word documents to help you work more effectively.

PROS

• You can have up to 5 000 people in a team.

• Up to 250 people can simultaneously be involved in a video conference call.