Feeling Disconnected Since 2020? Here’s Why and Here’s A List Of Things To Do To Make You Feel More Human
If you are in your 20s or 30s, you’ve probably grown up with two things: the internet and social media. I was born in 1996 and spent my childhood in the early 2000s. You’ve probably witnessed the rapid growth of social media on an intimate level. When I was in middle school, most of my friends and I had phones with an actual keyboard and MySpace was on the way out and Facebook was booming. In high school, Facebook was one of my main forms of communication with friends, and Instagram and Snapchat were born. Towards senior year and the beginning of college, I got my first smart phone and Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat were my go-tos. As an adult, TikTok came a little later but it seems like it completely took over. Especially when COVID-19 hit and the main way to connect with the world was through social media.
I’ve heard people say they feel like the world or time stopped in 2020. I’ve heard conspiracy theories about how we actually entered a time-glitch and we are actually stuck in 2020. This is because of how crazy it felt to experience a world pandemic in our modern lives. People look at the year 2026 and say, “how could it have been 6 years since the world shut down?”
These feelings make sense. Our world and our societies went through a catastrophic event in history. How do we “go back to normal”? After traumatic experiences, people can experience a change in how they view reality. Reality can seem altered - it can seem more negative or unreal. People may cope by isolating, withdrawing, or utilizing materialistic things such as substances or social media. We can’t go back to pre-COVID times. Just like we can’t go back before other traumatic events happen in our lives. Just like we can’t go back to any time at all. We have to move forward through time despite distressing events that occur.
Of course, everybody’s experiences within the last 6 years have been substantially different from each other. And at the same time, we were all in this melting pot by sharing this large-scale experience.
People have been feeling overwhelmed, off, anxious, irritated, lost, confused, discombobulated, distractable, impatient, etc. These are all natural human emotions. I notice that young adults especially are wanting to cope adaptively, raise their kids with consideration of technology and social media, and feel more human by engaging in go- touch-grass behaviors. I am one of these adults as well.
If you are looking for inspiration, I have a list of things you can do to engage in joy in the little things and feel more human:
Listen to music to just listen to music
Read a book for fun! And put it down and find another if it’s not fun
Go ride your bike if you have one
Walk around a park and notice everything you possibly can about the park
Clean your house or do house chores without rushing or feeling like it’s an emergency
Find a new coffee shop, try a new drink, and sit down for a while
Go on a walk and take a photo of anything you find pretty or interesting
Create a new outfit with clothes you already have
Bake a new sweet treat when you’re sweet tooth is aching
Write a letter or card to someone you think would love to receive one
Rearrange a room. Remember how fun it was to do this to your own bedroom as a kid?
Go to a local library, get a library card, & see what they have to offer
Look up when a local farmer’s market is happening, and go get some veggies or local products
Go to a trivia night at a local restaurant, bar, or brewery
Play a card or board game with a friend or family member
Plant some seeds! Plant something new in your garden or start an indoor herb garden
Start up a long lost hobby – for me, this is rollerblading. For you, this could be art, music, etc.
Re-organize something you’ve been meaning to get to. Maybe it’s your closet, pantry, fridge, or calendar - this often feels so relieving and exciting for people
Branch out in some way - read a new genre or book, order a new meal at your favorite restaurant, or make or stick to a social plan when you’d normally stay home
