I love technology, but not as much as you, you see

Instant messengers are one of the coolest things about the internet.
I have a few reasons for saying this:

1. It is so easy to keep in touch with my relatives in India.
My entire extended family lives there, and I remember when communication with them was such an ordeal.
It either involved one of us spending an inordinate amount of money to shout at each other over the bad phone connection (and combined with the language difference, all we could really say was "Hi, Hello, How are you? Good!") or writing letters.
Writing letters was terrible because it took a month to have any sort of correspondence (two weeks to get there, and if they popped a letter in the mail right away, it would be another two weeks before we got a response.) Not very efficient.
Last year, when my cousin and I were both pregnant, we could chat with each other about all the ridiculous stuff that was happening to our bodies and compare notes. Very cool. If we were doing it the old way of writing letters, we would have only been able to compare notes up to 9 times!
And shoot, the phone? I couldn't imagine shouting out some of the embarrassing side effects of gestation!
Now, I can chat with them as much as I want, and if I am busy, I don't feel guilty about saying, "Can I talk to you later?"

2. My parents, who live 10 hours away, get to see their grandson on our web cam and can chat with us anytime. My mother-in-law has yet to buy a computer, but when she does, she can get the joy of watching who she calls "the wee one" too!

3. I can talk to my husband any time while I am at work, and I don't have to have a conversation the rest of the cubicle world can hear ... if he needs to tell me something, all he has to do is message me.

Very cool! Props to instant messengers!