The only difference for me is being more intentional on reaching out to friends. It used to be that I would see a cool event coming up and then I would call someone that I thought would enjoy going and ask them to join me. More importantly, they would call and invite me. Now, there aren't any events to invite people to. Now I have to reach out and just bullshit with them on the phone or video chat. I am not a great at generating conversation so sometimes it is just quick "hey, hope you're well". If they are good at starting conversations, then we might be on the call for an hour or more. I have probably talked more with my mother and sister over text in the last eight months than I have contacted them in the past 20 years total.

An even bigger change for me has been with work. A part of my IT job is to support users. In the office I was just downstairs; if someone hit a small glitch, they would call and I would come up and fix this issue/teach them how to fix it themselves.. it would take all of two minutes. Then we would spend the next 10-15 chatting about whatever. It allowed me to build a rapport with new staff as they got settled in. That rapport gave me a pretty good way to keep my finger on the pulse of the organization, which management appreciated as a way to get feedback on changes and needs of the staff. Now, it isn't convenient for staff to get a hold of me and chat. Although, it has forced staff to communicate more openly with the supervisors/managers. But for me, it also means that when staff a struggling they are not getting the help they need from me before things spiral out of control and make a large mess that takes a lot of time and effort to clean up. And that has increased turn over. I have been trying to work with supervisors and managers to be more proactive in monitoring staff and approaching them before it reaches that point.