This is a great piece in the ATLANTIC by Amanda Mull.. she explains the scientific reasons why you are missing people that you didn’t even know that well.. But one other point she makes also is worthy to think about:
Some of the most obvious consequences of our extended social pause could indeed play out in the professional realm. I started hearing these concerns months ago, while writing a story on how working from home affects people’s careers. According to the experts I spoke with, losing the incidental, repeated social interactions that physical workplaces foster can make it especially difficult for young people and new hires to establish themselves within the complex social hierarchy of a workplace. Losing them can make it harder to progress in work as a whole, access development opportunities, and be recognized for your contributions. (After all, no one can see you or what you’re doing.) These kinds of setbacks early in professional life can be especially devastating, because the losses tend to compound—fall behind right out of the gate, and you’re more likely to stay there.
Likely to stay there.
Mull points out that Julianne Holt-Lunstad, a psychologist and neuroscientist at Brigham Young University, has found that social isolation increases the risk of premature death from any cause by almost 30 percent.
Apparently it also creates the death of a career much sooner..
There are other really interesting points to consider in the full article.. The roaring 20s rescued the malaise of the 1918 pandemic. So she ends her story on optimism that the 2020s will roar the same way..