When the dark force took over the skies and enwrapped its wings around the globe, spreading its evil essence of fear into the air – killing and spreading devastation across countries, we saw ‘socializing’ come into the spotlight. Have social lives really changed?
Today, at the coffee table, I found myself wondering, debating over the nature of social life during the time of COVID-19. As the UN has stated, the pandemic is much more than a health crisis; it is a human, economic, and social crisis. [1]
There are moments of ‘normalcy’ that I am nostalgic for, the fun and random in-person conversations with my friends, grabbing tips from seniors- an intense confab at the hostel, sharing food- in fact, BONDING over food! In my opinion, most of our ‘social lives’ have been considerably unaffected (to an extent) and well-compensated by technology (as I typed that, I realized how much of a privilege it is to say that!). We might be physically distant, but we are very much connected socially.
98.9% of the UAE population comprises of active internet users, with 96% having active social media accounts[2], making ‘distant socializing’ not very difficult to adapt. Online volunteering, attending webinars, online games, online classes, more time to develop new skills or work on older ones, and virtually meet up with people who share your interests! With more time at hand, it became about making sure it was utilized beneficially.
Physically-distant socializing has impacted us in ways we would have never imagined before. While it made clear how social we actually are, we are able to socialize with an immensely larger number of people. Meetings that took days to finalize the simplest of things; now take only a few hours to finalize with virtual meetings (perhaps a belated realization about how inefficient and unproductive our in-person meetings are?) People who traveled long distances to reach their institutes or workplaces now having plenty of time at hand to fill up their routines. And now all the free ‘Medical Webinars’ (if you are a medical student, you’ll know how much of a blessing this is!), online classes, free cooking classes, free meditation, calligraphy classes – all of these have kept everyone on the go.
Lockdowns and quarantines deprived humans of their most fundamental need for connection with one another, particularly now, when we need to sympathize with each other. We all know that sometimes the sheer presence of a person is comforting enough. At university, my friends and I would gather at the canteen and take breaks together – not necessarily to talk or do anything productive at all. Hence, we created a Zoom meeting solely to do nothing together. Likewise, we virtually clicked our cups of tea and studied quietly as if we were at the library or the study halls of our university. [3]
Conversely, drawbacks of virtually socializing such as lack of emotional connections, privacy issues with social networks, sedentary lifestyle, etc., although cannot be ignored, are only hiccups of this journey.
Remember, #WeAreInThisTogether and #WeCanWeWill fight this together.
Resources:
- “The Social Impact of COVID-19 | DISD.” United Nations, United Nations, https://www.un.org/development/desa/dspd/2020/04/social-impact-of-covid-19/
- Blogger, GMI. “UAE Internet Statistics 2020 (Infographics).” Official GMI Blog, https://www.globalmediainsight.com/blog/uae-internet-and-social-media-usage-statistics/
- University, Stanford. “Try ‘Distant Socializing’ Instead.” Stanford News, 27 Mar. 2020, https://news.stanford.edu/2020/03/19/try-distant-socializing-instead/
- Sircar, Nandini. “Covid-19: UAE Students Prefer Digital Learning to Classrooms.” Khaleej Times, Khaleej Times, 22 Aug. 2020, https://www.khaleejtimes.com/coronavirus-pandemic/covid-19-most-students-in-uae-vote-for-distance-learning-
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