Tools for Staying Social in Coronavirus Lockdown

Hi, everyone!  This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar channel and in today’s video, let’s talk about how to stay social during the Coronavirus lockdown. 

My community has not been told to shelter in place yet, but we’ve all basically decided to do so.  As you know, what this means in practice is no going out except to pick up essentials like medicine or groceries and to have things delivered if at all possible. 

This represents, as it does for everyone, a drastic difference in the amount of social contact that we all have — which is obviously the point!  But humans are social animals and we need human interaction to be emotionally healthy. So, it’s time to get creative about the ways that we interact during a quarantine.  I’m going to list all of the options from least intensive and interactive to most. 

Group text chats

I have several of these going in regular life, but they are even more important when you don’t see people regularly.   Make a bunch of group text chats with groups of friends so you share information and check in on each other.   And then post or check in fairly regularly.  I‘ve been sharing Coronavirus humor and pick me ups — like a picture of my neighbor’s brand new adorable puppy.  I’ve made one for my extended family, for my book club, my church small group, and a bunch of friend groups.  Another option is

Marco Polo

This is a video chat platform.  So, you send videos back and forth to each other like you would texts.  And you can do this in groups.  This is how we communicate and stay in touch with my husband’s extended family who live all over the country.  You get a lot more context from a video than you do from a text.

Phone calls

Believe me, I’m as phone phobic as any millennial, but drastic times call for drastic measures.  Pick up the phone and have an old fashioned phone conversation.  You receive way more social interaction benefits from the back and forth of a phone call than you do from a text or even a video recording.  Okay — now let’s talk about some options for

Video calls

This will not be a comprehensive review of video call products.  I’m just planning to tell you which video call tools that I use in different situations.  

• FaceTime - my nuclear family uses FaceTime a ton.  We all have iPhones and my husband FaceTime’s us when he travels for work, which he does a ton.  FaceTime is also my kid’s favorite communication method and we use it just to talk with each other even WHILE WE ARE IN THE SAME HOUSE.  I also have regular FaceTime calls set up with a couple of friends who have moved out of the area.  The benefit is that it is easy and convenient, but you have to have an iPhone and it has a limited feature set.  Recently, Apple added the ability to have multiple people on a FaceTime call, so as long as your friend group all has iPhones, you can have a group video call.  For those without an iPhone, I like
• Google Hangout - you need a Google ID in order to use this service, but you can get one of those for free.  I like this since you can make calls from an app on your phone or from your computer’s browser without downloading any extra software.  In addition, you can screen share from both your phone or your computer, so it is a great option for folks who are trying to work from home and collaborate without actually sitting in an office together.  This is a free service and you can have multiple people on the same call although I have have some video quality issues. And finally,
• Zoom - Zoom is the video call service favored by my grad school.  If you want to set up a meeting, you need to have an account, but they have a free version.  Once you set up a meeting, Zoom creates a URL to send to your meeting participants.  They will need to download a small piece of software, but the nice thing is that they don’t need to sign in or create an ID in order to participate in the call.  The free version allows you to setup meetings with one other person for as long as you want, but meetings of 3 or more people are limited to 40 minutes.  I went ahead and signed up for the Pro version for $15/month during this crazy time.  It’s been 24 hours and everyone in my family is using my account (we’ve had four meetings already today), so I think it will be worth it.  You can also share screens on Zoom, which makes it good for presentations, collaborative working, or just sharing funny twitter memes.  And with any of these group video call options you can do 

Virtual Outings

We just did our first virtual happy hour a couple of nights agowith about 10 families in our neighborhood.  It was weird, but good!  You can’t quite chat in the way you would normally, you know — talking over each other and having sidebar conversations, but it went a long way towards making us feel more connected.  Just hearing how people are adjusting and what they were experiencing was great.  Everyone brought their own drink (obviously) and we did a pretty good job of listening to each other.  I think it will be a regular thing.  But you can also have Virtual Dinners and setup the camera at the table, or virtual game nights using the Zoom or Google Hangouts screen share function.  Time to get creative.  Plus, this gives you an opportunity to actually shower and do your hair — which I managed to do for this video — you are welcome.  Meanwhile, my son is 12 steps ahead of all of us since he already plays

Social Video Games

Who knew I would ever utter the words “Thank God for Fortnite”?  My son plays with his friends several times during the day and night and, as a result, is perfectly content in quarantine.  They don’t see each other’s faces, but are able to talk easily and are doing something fun together as well.  It’s brilliant. I might have to start playing. And finally,

Walks

We have slightly different rules for outdoor activities.  I have a walk/run schedule already set up on Mon/Wed/Fri and I have not altered this.  Now the 3 of us just try to stay 6ft apart and don’t have any other contact.  Walks outdoors with plenty of space allow you to see others without much risk of contamination plus you get some exercise and get outside.  It’s a win/win.  

So, those are my suggestions.  I also like the idea of organizing a virtual movie party where you all start watching the same movie at the same time and text in a group chat throughout the movie.  Let me know what you think.  Comments are always appreciated and thanks for watching!