What does ‘social isolation’ mean?
With restrictions on social movement in place, isolation means different things to different people.
Furloughed
Being sent home and furloughed means no work, some money and lots of time to spend with family or to get creative in.
Working from home means spending all day talking to colleagues and clients digitally, but it might also mean breakfast, lunch and dinner with the family or completely alone. If you’ve worked from home or alone for a long time, the only thing to have changed may be that your clients are not there.
Everything and nothing
This a time when you can get any kind of food, grocery and consumer good delivered to your door, but access to medical care is severely restricted. A time when you can talk to anybody and go nowhere.
One thing that’s happening is that communities are beginning to form, or re-form. People are out for walks and bumping into (albeit two metres away) others that they haven’t seen for weeks or even months. Neighbours pass the time of day from a respectful distance. The courtesy of letting someone through a gate or door while we stand back and wait is a physical necessity in April 2020.
Human connection
Social distancing is recording huge benefit to the environmental air quality and it is also delivering beneficial changes in social behaviour.
During lockdown, it may be inconvenient if you can’t pop out to the shop whenever you need to. On the other hand, we are slowly getting to know each other again and human connection is a currency to value.
Future thinking. Future Proofing. It’s what we do – even during social distancing when it’s more important than ever.