Video: Social Connectedness during COVID-19

Clinical psychologist Tegan Cruwys discusses the concept of social connectedness and how being ‘together apart’ is both possible and crucial during the coronavirus pandemic in this 10-minute video. This is the last of a series of videos created to update and complement the recent book Together Apart: The Psychology of COVID-19.

Cruwys took that title in explaining the role of connectedness in the current moment. “Being ‘together apart’ is possible as well as how being ‘together apart’ is crucial – firstly for an effective response, secondly to adequately model our health risk, and finally, for our psychological resilience in the time of crisis that we’re all experiencing.”

She adds that for many people, they have never been so isolated as they have been during the pandemic. This isn’t just physical isolation, she stresses, but also “feeling isolated” from one another, creating a sense of loneliness when social needs aren’t met.

Cruwys, a , senior research fellow at the Australian National University, was one of four editors of Together Apart. She was joined by Jolanda Jetten, a professor of social psychology at the University of Queensland; Stephen Reicher, Wardlaw Professor of Psychology at the University of St. Andrews; and S. Alex Haslam,  professor of psychology and Australian Laureate Fellow at the University of Queensland. They worked at warp speed for the serious academic endeavor of producing the book at the beginning of the pandemic. Collaborating remotely put together the edited volume Together Apart in record time for SAGE Publishing (which released the entire book for free download on Social Science Space in May).

Now, in the dawn of 2021, they have been revisiting their work and that of their contributors in a series of seven videos in which they talk with the academics who wrote edited volume’s various chapters.

The series and presenters of the previous six videos are:

Social influence during COVID-19 | Alex Haslam, Nik Steffens, Matthew Hornsey and Frank Mols

Improving the Response to COVID-19 | Jolanda Jetten and Jack Dovidio

Polarization During COVID-19 | Jolanda Jetten, Heme Preya Selvanathan and Charlie Crimston

Two Psychologies Of COVID-19 | Stephen Reicher

Leadership During COVID-19 | S. Alex Haslam

Inequality During COVID-19 | Jolanda Jetten