The Coronavirus Crisis Is Showing Us How to Live Online

We are on the brink of what Vox’s Ezra Klein calls a “social recession” — an epidemic of loneliness and isolation brought on by the virus. The social recession will hit certain groups especially hard — older people, people with disabilities, people who live alone. But we will all feel isolated to some degree. And as long as it remains unwise to gather in physical spaces, we will need to create virtual spaces that can sustain us.

Building a virtual world to replace a broken physical one is not a new idea. It has been a staple in sci-fi narratives for decades, including classics like “Snow Crash” and “Ready Player One.” Many of these stories are dystopian in nature — in them, virtual reality is simply an escape from a real world that is falling apart.

But digital tools can also help strengthen our real-world ties if we use them the right way.

One thing we know for certain is that actively participating in online culture is far better than passively consuming it. Research shows that people who use social media actively — by sending messages, leaving comments or talking in group chats, for example — report being happier than those who simply scroll through their feeds, absorbing news stories and viral videos. Netflix binges and YouTube rabbit holes are fine for escapism, but if you’re looking to find solace on the internet, lurking alone won’t cut it — you need to contribute.

We also know that not all platforms are created equal. With so much alarming information flying around, private group messages and videoconferences are likely to produce calmer, more nourishing interactions than public platforms like Twitter and Facebook, both of which are designed to amplify content that is outrageous, divisive or otherwise highly engaging.

All over the country, citizen technologists are using digital tools to strengthen their offline communities. In San Bernardino, Calif., David Perez created a Facebook group called California Coronavirus Alerts to share localized information with his neighbors. A group of public-school teachers in Mason, Ohio, created a Google Doc to share ideas about how to keep teaching students during a state-ordered school closure. In the Bay Area, where I live, people are building databases to keep track of which seniors need help having groceries and prescriptions delivered.

It’s possible that this boom in prosocial internet behavior is temporary, and that the grifters and trolls who tend to glom onto major news events will swarm in to ruin it.

But it’s also possible that after spending years using technologies that mostly seemed to push us apart, the coronavirus crisis is showing us that the internet is still capable of pulling us together.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/technology/coronavirus-how-to-live-online.html