If your bestie is driving you nuts and you’re ready to ditch him/her for a new BFF, you might like to know that today (Monday 30th July) is International Friendship Day – otherwise known as World Friendship Day. So, it’s the perfect time to celebrate your nearest and dearest pals (and forgive any of their annoying foibles).
Okay, we know, there are more international awareness days than you can shake a stick at, but we reckon that this one is worth shouting about. So, before we show you how to get stuck in, how on earth did it all start?
The history of International Friendship Day.
Friendship Day was originated by Joyce Hall, an American business woman and founder of Hallmark cards, in 1930. It was intended to fall on the 2nd August and was designed to be a day when the US honour their friendships with holiday celebrations. Because it was promoted by the National Association of Greeting Cards, it was met with some consumer resistance and seen as a gimmick to make money. So, it didn’t take off in Europe and had faded away in the US by the mid 1940’s.
The first World Friendship Day was proposed for 30 July 1958 by the World Friendship Crusade, an international organisation that campaigns for a culture of peace through friendship. Then, years later in 1998, Winnie the Pooh was named the world’s Ambassador of Friendship at the United Nations(?!) and in April 2011 the United Nations officially recognised 30th July as International Friendship Day. According to the UN: “Through friendship — by accumulating bonds of camaraderie and developing strong ties of trust — we can contribute to the fundamental shifts that are urgently needed to achieve lasting stability”.
Sounds good to us! We all love an excuse to celebrate with our favourite people and with the growth of the internet and digital platforms like Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram, we think International Friendship Day can now be celebrated better than ever.
Here’s how you can get stuck in on Monday 30th July with Three:
Snap to your heart’s content.
Sharing is caring, and one of the reasons we offer limitless Snapchat on Three is so that people can snap, share and socialise without worrying about the cost. As part of our limitless Go Binge service, Three customers are free to use Snapchat to their heart’s content, without ever worrying about using up your data. And when you’re not Snapping, you can stream endlessly on Netflix and TV Player, listen to infinite music on Apple Music, Deezer and SoundCloud. And loads more.
Selfies worth sharing.
Whether you’re pouting at a party or bragging on the beach it’s fun to share our selfies with the people we love (and anyone who’s willing to take a look!). If you’re with your besties, then group selfies are the way to go and there are some awesome phones of 2018 with some impressive selfie cameras (officially known as front-facing cameras). Take the Honor 10 and the Huawei P20 or P20 Pro for starters. These affordable phones have a whopping 24MP selfie camera, so they can take very detailed images which will print perfectly. The Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9 Plus will take better selfies in low light if you’re looking for something that can capture a great pic when the sun goes down. If you’re an iPhone lover the iPhone X has Portrait Mode and Portrait Lighting, so you can blur the background of your selfies to create a striking effect. And you can adjust the lighting to make it look more like a professional studio shot. Nice.
Make an Animoji.
The iPhone X also supports Animoji, which uses the Face ID tech built into the front-facing camera to let you animate emoji animals, so their mouth movements and expressions match your own. It takes the selfie craze to a whole new level and it’s a bit of fun to try this out with your mates.
FaceTime on your iPhone.
It’s free and it lets you get up close and personal. What’s not to love? And this year, Apple introduced iOS12 with the ability to FaceTime up to 32 people at once. Organising a college reunion? Trying to get the whole family together for once? Then this awesome keep-in-touch tool on your iPhone is all you need. Why not have a competition with your friends to see who can get the most people on a FaceTime call?
Get stuck in on Facebook.
You don’t need us to tell you how awesome Facebook is for staying up to date with your mates. You can see what everyone’s up to on a daily basis, send group messages and chats, and be sure that you don’t miss out on the next big event. Why not set up your own event on International Friendship Day and get everyone to yours for a BBQ? For most smartphones, the Facebook comes built in, but if it isn’t preloaded on your device, you can download it via Google Play or the App Store.
Share some holiday happiness.
When you’re sunning yourself on your hols and you’re snapping selfies and sunsets, you want to share it all with your nearest and dearest. What’s the point of being on a sun kissed beach if you can’t brag about it to people back home? Thankfully, with Go Roam you can use your phone abroad in 71 destinations at no extra cost. So, if you need data to download, share and chat, you won’t need to worry about paying through the nose. Simply stream, FaceTime, browse, call and text just like you would back home in the UK. Go Roam is perfect for International Friendship Day, because no matter where you are in the world you can connect with the people that matter the most.
In a nutshell, your smartphone make it super-easy to keep in touch with your mates. So, go ahead and celebrate International Friendship Day with all your favourite people.
The post International Friendship Day: what it’s all about and how to get involved. appeared first on Hub.
Source: Three Mobile Hub
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