I get your point, but because we're in a lockdown, a whole host of things that we'd normally have available to us are gone. Normally when people have time off, they can still meet up with friends, or hang out at the coffee shop, or go to a meetup or a conference. Now we're idle at home without much-needed social connections to grease the daily wheels.
Right. Even activities you can do alone are distorted by isolation. I usually cycle alone 80% of the time. Now I do 100%. I have less motivation for my solo rides, even though I would be alone this year, or last year, no difference. Last Friday I decided a ride with one other person would be safe enough, and I find myself more motivated to ride alone afterwards.
That makes sense. There's an extra benefit to having company even if the goal of the activity is not to socialize itself. Just their mere presence feels good.
I was thinking the other day that I found it easier to dive deep into my side projects when I have the contrast of social outlets. If I just have my side projects, the balance is out of whack. It doesn't feel as meaningful as an outlet if it's the main thing. It's no longer this fun thing to do to give myself time away from others. All time is time away from others now.
Meetups and conferences are happening online now and it's actually pretty nice. For example, if the Julia Conference had not gone online this year, there's really no way I could've gone to Baltimore for most of a week to attend. But because it was online it was not only free, but also accessible. They had discord channels to hangout in as well as other ways to socially engage.
The most recent DefCon conference was held virtually and they referred to it as "safe mode" which I thought was a funny, poignant touch for a computer conference.
