The Coronavirus quarantine has reshaped our communication. Since March, most of the U.S. has switched over to mostly digital communication in an effort to slow the spread of COVID-19, and it’s impacting our social skills.
Quarttz reports on the work of behavioral scientists who say “Social skills are like athletic skills. If you don’t practice them for a long time, they atrophy.”
They say if we could combine digital communication with in-person interactions we’d likely be able to compensate, but no...No cure, No Vaccine, No face-to-face conversation,
We don't need a study to tell us that when we talk with someone in real life it’s much easier to discern their mood, tone, or subtle cues like posture or hand gesture—all things you can’t do, or can’t fully do, via video chat.
Even when small talk is possible it often goes back to the heavy topics on everyone’s minds: the pandemic, economic hardship, and systemic racism. Combine those topics with the stress of social deprivation and it's no surprise that everyone's on edge and acting a little off.
The good news: the pandemic hasn’t gone on long enough to imprint long term changes in social behavior...yet.
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