There were many times in April, when the lockdown was new and in full swing, that I walked into my brother’s room. We occupy the upstairs in my house, and my door is a handful of steps from his. His door is also broken. Not ideal for a 16-year-old boy, but great for his bored sister. However, half the time I was quickly shooed away.
“Ella.” He held up his phone. I’d see his girlfriend's face on the screen, say hello and bow out.
For my brother, communication mainly through social media — Snapchat, FaceTime, and Twitter — was not that much a jarring change. He was born in 2004. He learned how to operate an iPhone at the same time he learned table manners and how to spell. It's intuitive to him. It feels more natural to have a phone than to not.
Unlike my brother, my parents struggled to adapt. Social media is a language they’re novices at. What’s rather funny is how my grandmother knows how to use Facebook better than my mom. For my parents, communication became waving through windows. They were separated by a window rather than a screen. My mom called neighbors on the phone. My dad took virtual jujitsu lessons. Mostly, they were grateful that they had each other.
The change was even more substantial for my grandparents. They share a flip phone and a computer between them. My grandmother messaged more people on Facebook and my grandfather frequently called my mom on the flip phone to say they missed us.
For my friends, roommates, and I, all stuck at various houses across the country, unable to see each other on campus during the quarter, the entire social scene was tilted on its head. Inevitably, COVID-19 changed the way we communicate with each other. Messages had to replace conversations over coffee. Group zooms replaced parties.
This is the case for other college and high school students as well. Many took to TikTok to share their grievances during the unprecedented time. I know I downloaded TikTok in March after previously swearing off the app. Half my communication for that first couple of months was sending funny TikTok videos to my roommates. My brother’s generation was similar, except many of them were the ones making those TikToks. I was horrified to see my brother's face pop up on my "For You" page. But the comments online created a community, much like on Instagram. People posted stories admitting struggles we’d rarely seen before.
This didn’t stop at TikTok. People emphasized the need for connection by posting cute Instagram stories and inspirational Twitter threads. Others posted tips about how to throw Zoom parties and reminded people to check in with their friends.
My friend sent me an article that summed this up, the headline was, in a nutshell, "What You’re Feeling is Grief." We lost something we never thought we'd lose, tangible human connection. The one thing we were always supposed to have.
In between the bread-making and Tiger King memes, people adjusted to seeing people through a screen. We adapted and learned how to make connections through the screen.
I’ve yet to talk to anyone satisfied with these changes. It’s difficult to adapt to a massive change, like a global pandemic, that affects your day-to-day life. In almost every class I’ve taken since March, there’s been a collective longing for the intimacy of in-person connection and what life was like only a year before.
Returning back to a 90-degree normal had been difficult for all generations again. My brother is trying to hang out with friends again with masks and strictly in the backyard. My parents are tentatively drinking with our neighbors on the porch. Here at the University of Oregon, we're all battling to stay distanced when our friends are finally close again. With new rules and looser restrictions, normalcy is within fingertips reach — for some. My grandparents are still relegated to their house. I’m sure many people who are immunocompromised or naturally worried about getting sick are staying close to home as well.
We all face the challenge of balancing our safety with our need for connection and the fear we have to return to a full lockdown again. However, if one wants to look at the brighter side of things, we now know the best ways to communicate with others during a lockdown and have experience translating our in-person connection to the screen. We’ve all mastered the art of the “Cloud Connection.”
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