Many turning to digital platforms for social interaction.
Families, friends find ways to connect in cyberspace
Cooped up in his Antioch home and feeling antsy amid the coronavirus outbreak, Curtis Corlew realized that he desperately needed his family. But they don’t live nearby, and even if he could visit, he’d refrain in this era of social distancing.
“At times like this, everyone is so rattled,” he says. “You want to reach out to those you love, but it’s difficult.”
It soon dawned on Corlew, 66, that he could use the Zoom conferencing app to initiate a “virtual family get-together.” And so he and his wife, Tricia Campbell, got a fire started, set out some wine and crackers, and reached out across cyberspace to their relatives — a daughter in Colorado, sons in Concord and San Jose, and an uncle in Auburn — along with their spouses and three grandkids.
With those familiar faces brightly beaming from his laptop, the party was on.
“I thought we’d check in for 15 minutes or so and then be out,” Corlew says. “But it went on for two hours. We chatted about the virus and our concerns, about the news and the political situations going on. We talked about family and our lives. …
“At times, the kids ran around like they would at a regular party. It was remarkably satisfying just to see and hear them.”
As the days of isolation wear on, and our regular routines get upended, many people in the Bay Area and beyond are turning to platforms like Zoom and Google Hangouts to achieve the personal interaction they crave. Channeling their creative sides, they’ve set up virtual happy hours, movie nights, book club discussions, birthday parties and much more.
In the process, computer technology, so often slammed for keeping us apart, is fundamentally changing the way we connect with one another in the age of COVID-19.
San Mateo resident Beth McKee, for example, belongs to several knitting groups and has been using various platforms to maintain regular meetings with fellow members scattered around the Bay Area.
“There’s a joke among knitters that we’ve been training for this for years,” she says, referring to the isolation triggered by the pandemic. “We’ve got our needles and we’ve got stuff to work on, so we’re good.”
McKee, of course, looks forward to the day when she can
“It’s interesting that it took something like this to get us all to participate in the kind of fun project we could have been doing all along. I think it’s going to change how we live apart from here on out. We’ll all be more connected.”
— Katie Marcel of Livermore
go back to meeting her friends at a mall or coffee shop. But for now, she has a lifeline to them — and others — beyond her reach.
“I’m suddenly connecting with people I don’t normally hear much from,” she says. “People are reaching out and I think I’m cherishing the communication even more.”
So too is Carolyn Plath of Benicia. She belongs to a writing group that usually meets twice a month. Hindered by the shelter-in-place directives, she has used Zoom to keep the regular schedule in place.
“We appreciate that we can still see each other and talk and commiserate and laugh,” says Plath, who points out that the virtual connection is especially beneficial for members of her group who live alone.
“I’m married, so I have a built-in companion who I actually enjoy,” she says. “But when you’re by yourself, the loneliness can set in really fast. So this has been just enormous.”
Last week, Katie Marcel of Livermore found a way to take the virtual hangout an imaginative step further.
She and her far-flung family members are huge fans of “Nailed It,” a Netflix reality series that pits contestants against each other in a bake-off. So they decided to hold their own “Nailed It”-like family competition over a weekend.
“It was so fun, and we were all really into it,” she says.
On Saturday, Marcel conferenced with her parents in North Dakota, along with her two sisters and their families in Chicago and Seattle, to set up the contest rules and theme (waterfall cakes). Then, the culinary smackdown began.
On Sunday, the three families submitted videos of their work to Marcel’s parents, who were enlisted as judges. Everyone got together via Zoom to hear their rulings, but like so many parents — and grandparents — the elders refused to show favoritism, awarding everyone involved a special prize.
“Our family won the ‘shock-and-awe’ award, apparently for our great use of glitter,” Marcel says.
Her parents and siblings have lived apart for more than two decades and, over the years, they have often used FaceTime to communicate. But it was the shelter-inplace situation brought on by the pandemic that got them to think bigger.
“It’s interesting that it took something like this to get us all to participate in the kind of fun project we could have been doing all along,” Marcel says.
“I think it’s going to change how we live apart from here on out. We’ll all be more connected.”