Worried about keeping in touch with old friends after you move? Unhappy with the idea of spending all your money on long distance phone bills and all of your time writing long letters that don't seem to get there fast enough? This page explains how you can turn Cyberspace into your own communication highway -- linking you with past and future friends quickly and cheaply.

      E-mail is a great way to keep in touch with your friends. Cheaper than phone calls and quicker than letters, e-mail allows you to send and receive messages as often as you want. If you already have an e-mail account, all you need to do is make sure that all of your friends have your e-mail address before you move. Even if you don't have one, you can still benefit from your Cyberspace connections by returning to this site. Military Teens on the Move provides three other options that you can use to communicate with your old friends and learn about what's happening at your old school: chat rooms, bulletin boards, and school home pages.

      • Chat rooms allow you to communicate directly with as many friends as you like in "real time." That means that you'll type something at your computer terminal, and it will appear in the chat room for everyone to see within a few seconds or minutes. Then, your friend(s) can respond to your comment with their own. Some sites allow you to set up your own personal chat rooms where you and your friends can meet alone, while others are public chat rooms where other teens can join in your conversation. Of course, you probably won't want to wait at your computer 24 hours a day for one of your friends to show up in the chat room, so you should set up times to meet there. One way to do that is to use the bulletin board at this site.

      • Bulletin boards allow you to post messages onto a public web page. Usually, people post questions that they need answered or information that they want to share. You may want to post a message telling your friends to meet you at a chat room at a certain date and time. Or, you may want to post a message to find out what a friend's e-mail address is or to find out how your old soccer team is doing this semester. Before you move, make sure all of your friends know about this site so that they can check the bulletin board for messages from you and post messages to you.

      • School home pages provide lots of information that can keep you up-to-date on what's happening at your old school. (Also, some of your friends may have set up their own home pages where you can reach them.)

      You've probably already noticed the chat room and bulletin board options on the main menu page. Make sure to check them out before you surf out of this site. Here are some other chat rooms and bulletin boards that may be of interest to you:

      • Teen Chat Room -- Developed by a teen and supported by friends at GeoCities, this page contains links to a teens-only chat room and related resources.

      • Teen Chat -- Talk about teen issues or the latest music group. This is a fun place to hang out.