It all happened very quickly. One day I was attending 200 hundred person lectures, sitting in a packed Creelman Hall with friends and living on residence… then, within 72 hours, I had packed up all of my belongings and moved out of residence with plans of continuing the entire semester online from another city – and I am not the only one.
Everyone’s lives have changed a lot, very quickly. One aspect of this is our on purpose self-isolation. To protect others, and ourselves, we are advised to self-isolate. To help us do that (because we are all in this together), I have compiled a fun little list of things you can do to stay connected with others in these lonely times!
- Social Media and Texting
Social media and texting might sound over-recommended, but it really does help! Try reaching out to people whose phone number you might not have and see how they are doing. Post a picture of a book you are reading, and who knows, maybe someone else is reading it and wants to talk about it! Even just a repost of something positive can help others and make you happy. Just know when to put it down if your feed has more stressful news than you can take at this time.
- Calls and FaceTime
Sometimes it’s nice to hear someone’s voice. Sometimes it’s nice to hear their voice and see their face. For this, calls and video calls (like FaceTime or Skype) are great! I believe FaceTime can now accommodate multiple people on one call at a time, so you could even have a group of friends to talk to!
- Movie Night
Netflix Party! This is a free chrome extension that allows people with a Netflix account to sync a movie with other accounts, and it even has a text-chat function, so you can watch a movie in real-time with your friends! To make this even better, you could have a multi-person (or just one person) FaceTime set up at the same time. Considering movie theatres are closed at the moment, this is pretty close to seeing an actual movie together!
- Book club
I love to recommend book clubs! They are my favourite thing. Organizing a book club is usually not too difficult (if you can find willing participants). As bookstores are currently closed, I will note that most books are available on various online formats, and usually purchasing eBooks is cheaper than physical copies. In addition, a lot of classics are free (try Project Gutenberg) and your local library should also have some free eBooks available to borrow. If you really can’t find someone to have a book club with (this happens a lot…), Instagram and YouTube also have a lot of people talking about books. Joining “bookstagram” specifically can be pretty easy and fun (this is an Instagram community that discusses books, just search/tag #bookstagram on Instagram). Talking about movies and books are a great way to bond!
Quite frankly, it’s no fun staying inside all the time. Secretly, even the introverts are struggling. But, it really is best to follow self-isolation rules to help protect ourselves and others from COVID-19. So, do your part to support your friends, boost morale, and restore your own mental and emotional health by texting someone, doing a group FaceTime, or hosting a movie marathon (all from the safety of your respective homes, of course)!