It's a new life that is invented, a life made of confinement, but also of intense social activity ... digital. There are many of us, and no doubt many, these past few days, who have felt overwhelmed at times, overwhelmed by the flow of a digital and technological life that has suddenly swelled like never before. Dozens of messages, calls, Skype, WhatsApp, and other Hangouts in number, at work, at home, with friends, with family ... Thanks to confinement, it's a whole social life that is reinvents, which tries to find its marks. To understand these changes, I launched a call for testimonials:
CALL FOR TESTIMONIALS - Hello, you organize long distance aperitifs in common (each behind the screen), simultaneous cinema sessions with a call to the end, dej-whatsapp, or any other form of virtual socialization in a group, I'm interested! DM open :)
- Aude Lorriaux (@audelorriaux) March 17, 2020Amazing to read in your stories how quickly you adapted to this new life. How much we have, in 24h or 48h for some, recreated codes, rituals, that confinement had robbed us. For also, in addition to the need for sociability, "mark the temporality", as Stéphanie says, while confinement could otherwise give the feeling of a long shapeless day. If you have been confronted with some bugs, if you have stumbled sometimes on software not adapted to your group aperitifs, if you sometimes use the word "adjustment" ... You have in fact so quickly, so easily one could say, invented "video-aperitifs", virtual games and simultaneous cinema sessions, that one remains amazed by so much creativity and adaptability. And you even sometimes invented the new words that go with it, like "Skypero" or "Hangout and hangover" ...
Let's start with aperitifs with friends or "WhatsAperos" as summarized by Jean-Philippe. "The lesson is that you don't lose your drinking habits," jokes Vincent. At first glance, the aperitifs in video, it does not change much! With a few details, however. "Most people are really cool" on clothing, says Jean-Philippe. Like Cyril Hanouna jogging in his living room, we are still much less concerned about getting into his 31.
Some of you have added for the occasion a rule: "my friends and I have set up calls every night with the obligation to arrive with news not related to the virus," says Sarah. Others stayed with the classic formula: "We take out each of the peanuts, the beer, she takes wine, and presto we are called!" And we chat for 45 minutes, "says Joséphine, a communications writer, who finds her Touraine friend at 6.30 pm sharp every night," to break the isolation.
Tonight at 7:30 p.m., before the President's announcements, the veterans @perezvitoria @BettinaManc @leon_garaix @LCarcel and I are very officially organizing the FIRST APERIOD IN CONF CALL 😀 #DuCourageEtDuRire #COVID ー 19 pic.twitter.com/2UIpdWAsUW
- Amaury Gaillard #RestezChezVous (@amaurygaillard) March 16, 2020“At the start we stuck sticky notes on the screen”…
Besides aperitifs, there are those who prefer games and who try to adapt them in a "remote" format. Not always easy to do. Vincent tested the Trivial Pursuit with his partner's sister, her husband and their two children. "It is a little more complicated, everyone does not see himself on the screen, the little one is overexcited and prevents hearing the questions, we do not have the same game therefore not the same questions. This did not prevent us from having a very pleasant collective moment, ”he says.
A little less classic, Léa tested “Codenames” with friends via the Facetime app. It is a card game, a sort of pyramid "improved version" she says, where you have to "guess as many words as possible with only one word per association of ideas". The “digital” version seems to have been invented over the course of the evening, according to ideas: “We had to find a way to photograph the set to send it to ourselves. Then you have to cross out words as you go. At first we stuck sticky notes on the screen and then we used Paint or Preview [two software] to cross them out via the computer. Since confinement, we have become MacGyver's of sociability. But if you are a little lazy to reinvent the world, there are also ready-made games, like skribbl.io, which is a kind of online Pictionary (thanks to Laurent for the tip).
Netflix party
You are also some of you to have imagined simultaneous cinema sessions. And here too, habits are somewhat changed. Because who would imagine a group of people chatting during a cinema session? From a distance, with the cat, languages loosen… "We allow ourselves a lot more comments because we don't have to read them," explains Laurent, who tested the formula with his group of thirty-something friends. .
Formula A, the most basic, by pressing each on "play" at the same time each at home, and by adding messaging like Messenger or WhatsApp. “We decided, with a girlfriend who lives in another neighborhood, to choose and pay for a film daily each in turn on a cinema platform. The simultaneous session takes place at the end of the afternoon. Then we exchange by SMS or phone to tell our impressions, "says Benoît.
Formula B: the all-in-one techno-social package Netflix party, a free Google Chrome extension that lets you watch movies and series from a distance. “Netflix party really allows you to be synchronized to the film, much more practical. Anyone can pause when they want and that pauses the other video! ", Comments Laurent. And here is the result on Laurent's friends:
Photos to compare the different telework environments
The same kind of sociability is also reinvented at work. After all, we don't completely (if at all) get rid of our sensitive little hearts when we take the (virtual) step of the corporate door. What will happen to the coffee break, lunch with colleagues, and all these moments of conviviality? As soon as the question was asked, you already got hold of it, some on the first day of total confinement.
“We take colleagues breaks. Meet me for coffee around 10:30 am and ditto around 3 pm, ”Cynthia wrote to me on Tuesday March 17. Eva found with her colleagues a nice ritual, in addition to lunches and distance yoga lessons via Slack. Each day, a "photo of the day" is selected from a deluge of photos sent by colleagues, to compare the different contexts of telework "and the sometimes funny anecdotes that go with it" specifies Eva.
"It's a habit that many of us will miss when the confinement ends, I think, because it's super nice and punctuates our days with good times," adds Eva. We are a team of 50 people, so the photos are raining all day: we introduce ourselves to our pets, our apartments… We were treated to the "house tour" of the house of the parents of a few colleagues, to the chagrin of those confined to their Parisian studio! It's nice, it allows us to get away from our four walls by sharing the daily lives of others. "
Teams who did not take a coffee break in their life before confinement invented themselves in this new life, as in the French Federation of bicycle users. Some stories show a resilience and a spirit of cheerfulness that would almost make you want confinement (I exaggerate, yes). Others welcome this digital office life with a little less drive, regretting its sometimes intrusive nature, infiltrating the privacy of each and everyone. Because "to see the leaders with their dog or their children, in their house, is a change", explains Quentin. “We are fairly close between colleagues. But there, everyone sees the interior of your house, everyone knows your pace of life. "
Virtual sociability changes our habits and the nature of our interactions. Our jokes for example: "Pierre eats a lot of cheese, so we were delighted not to share the smell of his meal, the visual was more than enough," writes Eva, adding "hahas". She describes another running gag: mute her colleague's microphone without her knowledge during the meal, "then see his head when he realizes that he has been censored". "There are jokes on the interiors of each other's houses, on the difficulty imagined for some to be confined, on the capillary choices during this period of confinement", reports Quentin.
Sarah's friends arrive disguised in front of the camera. Others are "virtual checks", "virtual hugs", and even toast virtually. With a few advantages: "Nobody squats until 5 am and you don't need to tidy up the brothel of an evening for six," jokes Léa.
The cacophony
Sometimes you have to overcome some technical difficulties, or amplified by technology. Florian wanted to reproduce online the musical quiz game he practiced with his friends in a bar. But he realized that the digital variant was a real "bazaar". "Everyone talks a bit at the same time, especially since we are playing a game where we all have to respond as quickly as possible to find out who the artist is," he explains. There are games that lend themselves a little less than others to digital sociability…
"Sometimes, when there is lag in the connection, it can create strange atmospheres: people cut themselves off, misunderstandings or jokes with delay", abounds Sarah. "We thought that for the next time, everyone would have their totem object to show that they want to speak," reports Laurent. Léa thinks that the group needs a "Patrice Lafont or Maitre Capello so that everyone can follow", in short someone who takes the lead and imposes himself as the master of the game, or who distributes the floor.
Obviously, the more people there are, the more complicated it is… From around fifteen people, you sometimes have to hang on… “Yesterday we started a video conversation with 8 households, most of them in couples, with often a child or even two: it was complicated because 2 or 3 different conversations can start, you have to choose who you talk to, you tend to go from one friend to another without being able to stay focused. In the evening IRL, in general we discuss in small groups, and we can stay to chat for a little while. There it was impossible ”, explains Jean-Philippe. Some people laugh: "This afternoon, we were ten people at the same time, it was the jungle! But it's more fun than anything else, the important thing is to keep the team spirit alive, not to make long speeches ”, philosopher Eva. To streamline exchanges, The Schoolab company produced an internal note, with a few rules to respect (example: "Only the one who speaks on his open microphone: everyone mutes"). And managed to organize a small team lunch with 96 people connected.
Added to this are technical problems, or the difficulty of finding the right software or application for each activity. The network that crashes, the sound of the microphone that doesn't work…
"I attach great importance to seeing the faces in these times"
Once everything works well, there are not many of you who find these digital versions insufficient. You don't miss physical contact that much. Modest? “The heads and voices of our colleagues are very comforting for the moment already,” says Eva. “No, I did not feel a lack of physical contact. On the other hand, I attach a lot of importance to seeing the faces in these times! We only see that of our spouse, ”argues Jean-Philippe. "I lived as a great joy to no longer be forced to kiss," says even Cynthia.
It is only Sarah who fully asserts it. Yes, he misses contact: “Terribly. To reassure friends, to reassure me too. To also share our joy, we are always much less expressive behind a camera. "It is perhaps not so much the physical contact that you lack, as this je-ne-sais-quoi of real life, the expression of body, the glow of the glance, the smile which we see finely blooming on a face in all its folds… But you are also numerous and numerous not to bet on the long term: “We are only at D + 5 ”, says Léa for example…
A funny atmosphere still settled in digital conversations, with an avalanche of jokes, jokes and even an "overplay of joy", says Cynthia. To reassure themselves, no doubt, and because worries are expressed nervously in laughter. A more intimate atmosphere too, where we tell ourselves things that we would not have dared to say a few weeks before. “Usually, we didn't talk so much about such personal things. We access very strange conversations: we tell about our dreams, our meals, we give each other news of our families we don't know, ”says Sarah. Like these neighbors who each evening sing the Marseillaise or Bella Ciao together, the coronavirus will have brought us all a little closer, despite the virtual and the distance.
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