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It’s May 2023. Yvonne Brewer walks into the ballroom of her automotive company’s first in-person sales meeting since the pandemic. She feels like she’s Dorothy, just landed in Oz. Energetic, excited, engaged. Not only because she’s surrounded by colleagues and friends but because the meeting itself feels different than meetings used to feel. More interactive, more personal, more in sync. She realizes now how much she’s missed this.
Today, the new killer app is, in fact, analog: bringing people together in a room. Talking to one another and making eye contact. Folks who have connected, collaborated, and even celebrated on digital platforms are meeting each other, laughing, dancing, singing, sharing, and celebrating in person. Annual meetings, sales kick-off events, brand interactions and experiences, networking parties, and team building are all back. Attendees look forward to award ceremonies because recognition feels more meaningful in a room with 500 or 5000 friends and colleagues than it does on a laptop. And they know it.
In May, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy raised a red flag alerting the country that the pandemic had precipitated an urgent and devastating public health crisis of loneliness, isolation, and lack of connection. Murthy’s warning noted evidence-based data that disconnection, loneliness, and isolation negatively affect our health at every level: mental, physical, and societal. And although mental consequences like anxiety and depression may be top of mind for most people, the physical effects are equally devastating. A lack of connection can increase the risk of premature death at a level commensurate with daily smoking. In contrast, increased connection can reduce the risk of heart disease, stroke, and dementia. Murthy’s alert reinforces what research since the 1970s has shown us: people with weaker social networks are likelier to die younger.
Like most professionals around the globe, in March 2021, Brewer’s work as a digital manufacturing sales representative shifted from entirely in-person to entirely remote, and she felt the effects on her client relationships: “When you're on a video chat, there's a feeling of isolation, a feeling of separation. There's no better way to break that fourth wall than when you're sitting in front of someone – when you can walk up and give them a hug when you greet them, to sit down and truly interact in a human way without an electronic medium disrupting that free flow of energy.” She found it took her longer to connect to her clients’ needs – to get to the heart of what they wanted. She felt the effects in her personal life as well. She describes it as though she was “living under a rock. I missed my clients. I missed my friends. I missed my parents. I missed my ‘real’ life.”
When Covid-19 shut down the country in March 2020, the right technology was readily available to keep our businesses moving forward. Zoom users surged from ten million daily users in December 2019 to 200 million that March. But although messaging and video software has continued to allow us the flexibility and convenience to connect virtually, it has not provided us with the same level of connection with our colleagues, friends, and loved ones. As Brewer observed, “There’s just no substitute for being physically in the same proximity as someone else.”
Since our initial eager adaption to Zoom and other virtual platforms, we’ve learned that although convenient, these tools can be detrimental to developing new – and maintaining existing –relationships. According to Kate Murphy, author of You’re Not Listening: What You’re Missing and Why It Matters, “Psychologists, computer scientists, and neuroscientists say the distortions and delays inherent in video communication can end up making you feel isolated, anxious, and disconnected.” In her New York Times Op-Ed piece “Why Zoom is Terrible,” she explains that video also makes it impossible for us to accurately and in real-time read another person’s subtle facial expressions, contributing to our difficulty in predicting what they will do next. Camera angles make it less likely to have direct eye contact, which creates distrust. Counterintuitively, Murphy proposes that we are more likely to sense all these cues better on a telephone call. Brewer’s characterization of her experiences on virtual platforms is reminiscent of this disconnect: “Even though you're talking to humans, it feels very inhuman.”
In the 1980s, the world was shocked by the disturbing images of Romanian orphanages where neglected babies lay in cribs, silent and deprived of human contact except when fed or diapered; they had not been sung to, cuddled, or rocked. The babies were abandoned entirely and deprived of social interaction. It’s well-recognized that skin-to-skin contact in babies is critical to their emotional development, brain activity, and stress hormones, and psychologists found that the Romanian children’s deprivation resulted in lasting effects: different levels of oxytocin and vasopressin, hormones linked to emotion and social bonding.
Neglected children are more likely to suffer later in life from poor impulse control, social withdrawal, problems with coping and regulating emotions, low self-esteem, pathological behaviors like tics, tantrums, stealing and self-punishment, poor intellectual functioning, and low academic achievement. The science is clear. We need social connection from the moment we enter this world.
In a 2015 review article published by a group of Finnish neuroscientists in the journal Neuron, the authors begin with a hypothesis: “Social interaction could be the default mode via which humans communicate with their environment” and that “humans have an innate tendency to interact and synchronize with others…” They return to the most intuitive explanations for this synchronicity's origin: the maternal-child bond in utero and the bond that continues after, when newborns rely totally on their caregivers. They conclude: “Preference for synchronous movements with others continues throughout the adult life.”
The desire for interpersonal attachments is a fundamental human motivation – we seek frequent interactions to fulfill this desire. Humans instinctively come together because we are wired to experience the world and share that experience in real time and then in perpetuity through stories, mythology, legends, and art. As social creatures, we not only feel safer and more secure when we are surrounded by other people, but we also feel happier and more “alive.” Across European, American, African, and Asian cultures and for many millennia, people have gathered for festivals, religious rituals, theatre, and athletic events. That gatherings generate a feeling of “aliveness” is supported by science. A 2017 study found that theatregoers’ heartbeats synchronize and beat simultaneously during performances. And research supports that this synchronization deepens bonds, even among strangers. Live events are that powerful.
COVID didn’t change the fact that we craved that feeling of synchronicity. But beginning in March 2020, around the world, we all adapted to the new environment we found ourselves in, and those social interactions pivoted. We attended virtual birthday parties, virtual funerals, virtual plays, and virtual business meetings. We found, however, that no matter how many virtual background images we used on our video calls to transport ourselves across borders, no matter how many chat spaces we used to talk with colleagues, friends, and loved ones, no matter how many emojis we used to mimic our facial expressions, virtual didn’t cut it. Syncing a Netflix movie with friends just isn’t the same experience as being in a movie theatre, laughing in a room together. Nothing replicates the visceral thrill of connection that we experience when we are in person.
Now that vaccines made it more medically safe for many of us to co-mingle in our personal lives, we are again out in the world. Road and air travel, cruise volume, national park visits, and concert attendance are up. The same holds for global leisure. The numbers lead to only one conclusion: more than ever, people crave memorable, in-person experiences.
The workforce, however, has yet to likewise shift to in-person. With remote work still in full force, company productivity, morale, job land, brand loyalty, and performance are at an all-time low. A full week of virtual meetings leaves 38% of employees exhausted, while 30% feel stressed. Twenty percent of remote employees say they lack a sense of belonging and sometimes feel lonely, and more than a third of workers are actively or casually seeking a different job. Evidence suggests that workers are losing momentum without in-person experiences and the opportunity to co-create, socially connect, and share in a sense of mission. This community of co-workers never seemed so important until it disappeared.
Workers crave opportunities to connect. Live and hybrid experiences provide us with an opportunity to connect as individuals and thrive as communities. In a room together, our hearts beat in sync. This closeness makes us healthier, and it makes us happier. Live events produce a cascade of feel-good chemicals that connect us in ways that are unattainable through screens. There is no substitute. Said quite simply, “Viva in-person. And viva the return of events.”