Skype

THE Facebook generation is giving up more of its privacy by inviting friends and even strangers directly into their homes, courtesy of Skype.

The lure of free video calls, fuelled by vastly improved broadband internet access and mobile technology, has sparked a near 60% rise in 15 to 24-year-old users of Skype since January last year, the steepest of any age group.

While teenage girls may use it to compare notes on what to wear before a night out, boys exchange tips on how to win at the latest video games. And instead of popping down to the pub on a Friday night, some young adults are logging on to Skype to have a “virtual pint”.

With the aid of a webcam, Kayleigh Carroll, 23, a film student at the University for the Creative Arts in Farnham, Surrey, uses Skype to socialise over drinks with her friends — even if they are in Dubai, New Zealand or beyond.

She said: “ I sit with my friends doing our make-up, chatting and using the camera like a mirror. You can ask, ‘Does this dress suit me?’ and stand on your bed to show them what you’ve got on.

“It’s as though we’re all on a night out together.”

Since early 2010, Skype has gained more than 20m new users aged 15-24 worldwide, a 57% rise, according to figures from comScore, a market research firm. Skype, which has more than 145m active users a month, was bought by Microsoft last week for $8.5billion (£5.2 billion) with the aim of boosting the software giant’s challenge to tech rivals such as Facebook and Google.

In theory, Skype offers more privacy than Facebook if users are strict about who they allow to contact them. They can choose from several statuses to indicate whether they are in the mood to talk, ranging from “SkypeMe” — which disables all privacy settings — to “invisible”, a mode that allows them secretly to monitor which of their contacts are online.

However, many younger Skype users appear happy to befriend complete strangers, opening up their private worlds even more than they do on Facebook.

Bored teenagers have taken to leaving their Skype usernames on internet forums — the equivalent of posting their phone number online — and encouraging anyone to contact them to chat.

One young Skyper recently put a post on a popular forum that read: “I’m bored. Does anybody want to Skype? My computer broke, so I only have Skype on my mum’s computer.”

Within 25 minutes the poster had five responses, including three who handed over their usernames immediately, with no apparent concern for privacy.

Another response posted yesterday read: “Im Ben, 19 from England :) Add me if you ever fancy a chat!”

Another, posted by a 14-year-old girl in Scotland, read: “Bored Skype me xxx [name deleted]”.

Frank Furedi, professor of sociology at Kent University, warned that individuals are also approaching Skype users out of the blue.

“You have a growing number of people who are cold-calling,” he said. “And not everybody — especially teenagers — refuses [to respond], even though the potential consequences are much more intrusive than with Facebook.”

For many, the risks do not outweigh the convenience and savings offered by Skype. Nick Mason, 24, a chef from Bingham, near Nottingham, became hooked during a yearlong trip to Australia.

He said: “At first I just used it to speak to my family. When you’re far away it’s nice to see a friendly face. It became a routine way to keep in touch among backpackers.”

However, he has come to use it much more routinely as a new social forum. “Now I sign in three or four times a week and speak to whoever’s online — usually anything from half an hour to an hour,” he said.

As with Facebook and other social media, the etiquette for Skype is still being formed. Jonathan Senior, of Sharp End Training, an internet firm, said it was bad manners to Skype someone out of the blue.

“Unless someone has advertised that they’re keen to chat, then it’s quite rude to call them without sending a message in advance,” he said. “If someone has just signed in, you should give them a moment before contacting them — or it’s the equivalent of collaring someone the second they arrive at a party.”