To feel connected with people is one of the most important things in life. With the corona regulations we have more digital contact with each other. But digital contact is often very shallow. In this article tips on how to improve the quality of your digital social contact.
Shallow contact
“Oh, I see I didn’t reply yet. Sorry! I was cooking and saw your message, but forgot to reply. ” Reactions like this are probably not unknown to most people. It illustrates how we use our phone; you look at your messages between your activities, but do not really have the time to respond most times.
Normally, this is not so irritating, because you see each other in real life as well. Now that digital contact is all we have, it can cause problems. The digital contact is often fleeting and may feel superficial. This makes it difficult to really connect with each other, while these days connections are what we need the most. Calling each other may work better, but even then the conversation can still feel superficial.
How can you really talk to each other?
Make appointments to call each other, just like you would make a regular social appointment. This way you can be sure that you both have the mental space to listen to each other.
It is also good to think about whether there is an activity you want to do together. If someone just ate and the other just starts to eat, it can feel strange. If someone wants to watch a movie together digitally, but the other wants to chat, there is also a mismatch. A good tip: make digital appointments exactly as you would make a normal appointment.
Don’t forget to share where you are (in which room) and you are doing (drinking tea, painting your nails, cuddling your dog) while calling. Usually the other person does not see this and that can be unpleasant, because it feels like someone is not there with their full attention, while this does not have to be the case at all. In real life we can also hug the dog and listen to our friends at the same time.
Inspiration for digital contact
Finally, there is some inspiration of what you can do together during (video) calling:
- Drink tea or coffee together.
- Cook together or bake something tasty (both the same or both things different).
- Watch a movie together (you can share your screen).
- Play a digital game together.
- Tinkering together.
How are you going to pay attention to others?
