Tearing personal connections apart because of spatial circumstances sounded like an act solely for married adults who needed to move to some other city, state or country so one of the partners could fulfill his or her job responsibilities.

As we age, we learn reasons to move vary from just jobs. By the time we reach high school seniorship, we accept that distance will separate friendships, and we embrace it.

In this digital age in which we live, multiple outlets allow us to stay connected though spatially severed.

Enter Skype, a wonderful web-based communication tool that provides archived text conversations and – more popularly – Webcam-based chats.

I first used Skype in 2005 or 2006, but I didn’t really sign on too frequently back then. It was a great way to sidestep America Online Instant Messenger, which we all lovingly dub as AIM. Sure, AIM had vocal chat features and video capability, but Skype’s blueness and newness turned a favorable head toward it.

It wasn’t until I graduated high school in 2009 that I even thought about using Skype again. A divorce period between myself and AIM – I’d outgrown what 11-year-old Ryan thought was a suitable screenname – and Facebook Chat – I’d wearied of obligatory adds popping up and talking to me – left me to, you guessed it, cell phone text messages as my most immediate source of communication.

I spent a great summer chatting with a friend who would soon be off to Orlando, and I stared at my computer blankly the night I moved into the Osprey Fountains when Skype took a ridiculously long time to load and a message that Information Technology Services had just quarantined my Internet popped up on my browser.

I exited Skype and wouldn’t use it – save for a couple of times during Winter Break and once at my friend’s apartment at the Districts in February – until summer.

So, when I opened my email May 16 and saw “Skype Now Available on Campus” as one of the headlines, I felt excited but then remembered I no longer live on campus. Most of us have been at UNF since times in which Skype would lose Internet permissions for a couple of minutes until quickly shutting it off.

The email came at a big time for Skype: Six days earlier, the company announced Microsoft had purchased it for $8.5 million.

The gaming world exploded with possibilities for Xboxes and Kinect, and those of us detached from that world marveled at the high price tag.

While I don’t deny having my nerdy vices – I’m more on the videoblogging and social media-obsessed side of the geek spectrum – I can’t say I foresee any new features that would enhance Skype for me other than what it usually offers.

As far as on-campus Skyping goes, it doesn’t really appeal to me, but I could be devouring these printed words later. Skype’s one of those things – like your middle school LiveJournal account – that you do, but you don’t really talk about it in face-to-face conversations, unless those face-to-face conversations exist on the messenger.

Although, I don’t deny that classmates in the fall will plop open their computers and pound away on their keyboards during lectures and class discussions in conversations with others who may or may not live far away.

And while I’ve transferred most of my we-don’t-go-to-the-same-school-anymore-how-sad conversations over to Facebook – wall posts and messages, not the chat feature, mind you – Skype keeps me connected with friends I’ve met through my online hobbies and only see once or twice in a year’s time.

Akin to how one who casually uses the Internet considers something Facebook official, we’ve adopted adding one another Skype official, a mark of true friendship and a willingness to connect.

So, with that, I can say I am excited for the new group of folks who can stay connected, even while bound to UNF’s server’s confines for semesters at a time.