Pandemic-era hyper-connectivity coincided with heightened social isolation

Evidence

The defining trends of the late 2010s—megastars, interpolations, and a pervasive sense of creative stagnation—reached a new level of monotony during the COVID-19 pandemic. As the world plunged into isolation, billions endured closed borders, lockdowns, and a collective uncertainty about the future. The pandemic claimed millions of lives and reshaped economies. Meanwhile, the professional class made do with ersatz socialization: drinking takeout Negronis on Zoom cocktail parties or holding synchronized TV streaming sessions with friends. Yet the overall mood was one of social isolation. “We’re disconnecting from each other even though online we’re probably more connected than we’ve ever been,” Pharrell Williams told i-D magazine in June 2020. — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 644

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Perpetual online connectivity produces numbness without genuine connection — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1246; Communications shutdowns backfire in dense cities where informal street networks replace telecom — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and…, 226