"I n my first year of high school, all of my friends lived in my phone. It was the first full school year affected by COVID-19, which meant we were at school in person one day-only taking one four-hour class while we were there-and online again the next. I'd been swept into a friend group practically by accident through class group chats or face-masked icebreakers, and once we'd formed our little group, we stuck together like it was life or death."
"We texted constantly: while our cameras were off in school Google Meets, as we sat two metres apart in socially distanced classrooms, and in the middle of eating lunch alone in our separate houses. It's a lot easier to talk about yourself over the internet-you feel less judged, even if the people you're talking to wouldn't have judged you in the first place."
During the first full school year affected by COVID-19, friendships developed primarily through phones, group chats, and masked icebreakers while students alternated between brief in-person classes and online learning. Constant texting sustained intimacy: conversations during Google Meets, in socially distanced classrooms, and while eating alone at home made sharing feel safer and more forthcoming. Those rapid, intense bonds persisted when school returned to normal, producing codependent loyalty and reluctance to change social circles. Anticipation of university separation made final in-person moments bittersweet, with plans to revert to digital contact such as Instagram DMs after moving away.
Read at The Walrus
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