My friend and community colleague Margie Morris wrote a wonderful article for a clinical neuroscience journal that, with her permission, I am excerpting for a series of posts. My goal is to spark discussion about each of her insights.
She writes:
To meaningfully connect, we will need to do more than show up online. Now, more than ever, it’s important to use technology intentionally.
– Margaret Morris
Now for the first excerpt:
“Staring at coworkers’ faces, up close, for hours on end, is exhausting. Adults working from home could take a cue from kids. One mom described her 7-year-old’s online playdates as a form of show and tell: All they do is share their toys and newly discovered virtual backgrounds. Looking at something together can be more engaging than looking at each other. Videochat can also be dialed down for a low fidelity co-presence. With the shift to online classes and increased individual work during the pandemic, some university students leave video calls on for hours at a time to help each other stay on task. They don’t talk much and rarely look at the video feed, but the lightweight persistent connection holds them accountable to each other.”
What do you think? How can we comfortably just “be” with each other during lockdown? What tricks and tips have you developed for virtual connection? Please share in the comments.
Image credit: Meghan Fox
Interestingly, we video visit more frequently with foreign relatives and we do it as a group, which allows us to interact w more people. Something we’ve never done before. And with Black Lives Matter, we’re now connected w former classmates 2x/month to discuss and learn.
I’m also FaceTiming and using video calls much more than I ever have before. My new favorite “be with someone” activity is watching a movie or show with my friend or family member on speakerphone next to me. Feels cozy and relaxed, unlike so much of the rest of my days!
I’m admittedly weird, since I’ve lived alone most of my life, worked from home since 2000, and am a super extrovert (odd blend, indeed) – my working life has always included extended time on the road, both when I worked in newsgathering and now in my work in health/data policy as a grassroots expert/journo, so I’m feeling the lack of face time with people in those on-the-road parts of what was “my life before.”
Have been home in one version of physical distancing or other since mid-February when I had a knee replacement, my one day back out among the humans was at a data summit here in Richmond VA on (wait for it) March 11, Weinstein/No Hoops/WHO It’s A Pandemic Day.
Jumped in head/feet first on leveraging no-on-the-road time into learning time, have worked my way through 2.5 UT Knight Center for Journalism MOOCs on data journalism, a JHU Bloomberg School MOOC on contact tracing, and a Dialogue Company anti-racist training (in process now). Also planning on learning R coding, once the deck is clear of current coursework, in September.
I do try to set up hang sessions on videochat with friends and colleagues, but not everyone is excited about yet another video call. Spend a good amount of time in Signal and Slack channels, chewing on stuff ranging from local news and politics to global data privacy to digital medicine.
What I miss most is my forays out to bars and restaurants on my own, which always served up great food and often served up new friends, or happenstance running in to old friends. And I *definitely* miss travel.
In short, I’m OK with being alone … but I recognize that this will get harder and harder, since by the beginning of 2021, we’ll still be in pandemic mode, and I’ll have been in physical-distancing mode for almost a solid year by then.
Thanks, Casey! That’s an awesome lineup of online courses and communities.
It took me a day to respond because I was offline (!) for the first day in a long time, driving up and back to visit my mom and another relative in NJ. We sat far apart in the shade of an ancient tree and found ways to laugh. It was a balm. Worth the seven hours in the car!
It’s so nice to hear about these openings. Susannah, that description of sitting under a tree, laughing with your mom, is magical.
My favorite part of this was “hearing” Casey Quinlan’s voice in the comments, from back in 2020. With her six paragraph review of activities past and present (pre- and early COVID days), I could conjure her right up as if she was across the screen or the table, as she was, maybe one year later, fall of 2021, sat next to me by the Charles River in Cambridge when some of us attended a conference (including Regina Holliday who painted and spoke, and stayed at my home).
Others joined us for drinks & dinner on the patio that evening. It would be the last time I spent with Casey, and we had a deep conversation about personal and family healthcare challenges. After knowing her only casually for maybe 8 or so years, I’d not had such a deeply personal conversation with her, and never felt so close, as if we were kindred spirits. I learned through her death, that’s the way Casey made everyone feel. I’m so grateful for our moment together, for her presence and the gifts and light she brought to this community. Hope she’s resting in peace and if there’s any other energy fields after life, I know she’s giving what-for to whomever deserves to be set straight about what’s what! ❤️
Tami, thank you for this beautiful remembrance of Casey. One benefit of the wired world is having these online captures of a friend’s words — and yes, Casey had a distinctive voice in both the written and spoken word.