Technology helps people do everything from planning to meet for a movie to keeping in touch with a friend who lives in a different country.     When planning to get together with friends, Julian said , " If I want to go and see a movie with a few friends, I usually send them text messages. By telephone, you have to call every single friend one by one. But text messaging allows you to send the same message to as many people as you'd like, which saves a lot of time."    Email, IM, and other low-cost methods of communication also help people keep long-distance friendships in ways they couldn't have even a few years ago.     Mike told us, "I had this friend when I was 8 or 9 , and then she moved away to the country. We promised to stay friends and to send letters, and at the start we did. Then the letters got fewer and fewer and we at last stopped writing to each other. I think if we had had email, we would still be in touch."    James found out about cost the hard way. He said, " I called my friend in New Zealand, which is halfway around the world, and it cost me over $200! So now I just stay up late to see if I can catch him on MSN or I write an email."     Email, IM, and other low-cost ways of keeping in touch also allow people to develop brief acquaintances  into long- lasting friendships. Andrea told us, " I met this really cool girl. We've been in touch over half a year and it's nice to talk to her." How does Julian usually get in touch with a group of friends?
By emailing them. By chatting with them on MSN. By sending them text messages. By giving them a phone call.