Looking back on architecture school, I reminisce about the days when my sleep-deprived classmates and I moved through campus as if in a haze, juggling classes and all-nighters, slurping instant ramen and taking naps under our desks. It made me wonder, “What is there to miss about that?”
Well, everything. It’s the collective sense of purpose, the tangible community, the raw emotion and authenticity that spending so much time with others exposes. My classmates and I saw one another at our best and worst, and that familiarity grew into trust. We were in this mess together.
As we navigate COVID-19, we are learning new ways to bond. Social support has never been more important, and yet some people believe the constant onslaught of Zoom calls leaves little room for emotion. These days you might feel like just sharing an emotion requires a calendar invite. When is the time for casual? When is the time for reading others’ body language to figure out whether they’re open to talking, if they need a friendly ear, or if they could be that ear for you?
This quarantine proves that many office-goers can work from home and remain productive. For some, that has created options for work-life balance, but for others it means a devastating loss of everyday connections that provided structure and warmth. Former U.S. surgeon general Vivek Murthy warned that the COVID-19 crisis could launch not only an economic slowdown but also a social recession—a fraying of social bonds that causes harm for years.
It’s not just our mental health taking a hit. Researchers have linked social isolation and loneliness—the subjective sense of isolation—to a host of poor health outcomes including heart disease, dementia, sleep loss, depression, and reduced life expectancy. It’s no surprise, then, that workers who report feeling lonely take more than twice as many sick days as workers who aren’t lonely, according to a Cigna U.S. workplace study released in January. ¹
Amid this uncertainty, we may find that our feelings about the office have changed. Perhaps the idea of the office as a culture builder once struck some people as trite or contrived, but we see now that we need—we crave—a place to talk to colleagues face-to-face, shoot ideas back and forth without accidentally talking over someone else.