Rosalie Martin: COVID-19 makes us value our friendships and connection so much more

The pandemic has taught us that purposeful community and one-on-one connection have beauty in their depths yielding kindness, gratitude, patience and good health, writes Rosalie Martin

In 2000 I read a book that influenced me enormously. If we’ve met over a cup of tea anytime in the past two decades you’ll know its title. You certainly will if you’ve been to dinner at mine across those years. My two sons were at tweeny age back then. They say all the dinner parties of their teenage memories were punctuated with conversations arising from the themes of this book. I can still hear their voices, “Here comes Bowling Alone”, as they excused themselves from the table.

The full title is Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. Its author, sociology professor Robert Putnam, presented data that showed how connection between people had massively declined over the 50 years from 1950 to 2000.

Putnam’s words fully tripped my dopamine responses. I was stamped with three unforgettable messages.

The first is that the decline in interpersonal connection was so massive – 60 per cent to 80 per cent measured across multiple sources – and still going down! Putnam showed that the generations living through the World Wars had very high interpersonal connection. He called it “social capital”. He showed how this strengthened their communities, opportunities and happiness.

Notably, his data did not include the influence of the personal computer! Way back in 2000, this machine wasn’t in everyone’s home, satchel, pocket, or hand. It was too early to empirically demonstrate its impact on human connection. Though plenty of scholars and others were joining ideas and following trajectories of thought about how things might unfold. Many predicted connection might continue on a downward slide.

COVID-19 has made us value our friendships and realise how deeper connections with people around us strengthen our communities.

The second unforgettable point for me was a simple statement somewhere in the midst of the book. If we’re losing connection with others, we’re losing something too valuable. The price is too high.

I agree.

Looking back, I realise I read Bowling Alone with low-level horror. It definitely ignited a desire to more fully understand these sociological influences on my work as a speech pathologist. And to do better.

The trepidation had me reading furiously into the night speeding to the end where maybe some resolution and hope might be projected. And there was a little bit. Of hope that is.

There was also the third point that has stayed with me, which Putnam posed as questions he could not answer: to forge deep connections that strengthen community, do we need the moral equivalent of war? And if so what is that?

I think we’ve just lived (and are still living) through some cousin of war. COVID-19 fell down upon us in a way that I imagine the fall of war might be experienced.

An invisible, insidious, devastating, unknown enemy out there changing the things we’ve known. But without a human face. Rather, a monstrous, cold and indifferent fact.

We had to pull together. And we did! And we are! All strength to you all. And thank you. When I stay at home I help my community; when they stay at home they help me.

It all felt like service to me. I was serving something beyond myself. Community. Loved ones.

Tasmanian speech pathologist, criminologist and former Tasmanian Australian of the Year Rosalie Martin says the power of connection cannot be underestimated.

Newly met ones. Unknown ones. And everyone was talking about kindness. It burst out of us all like hyacinths in the spring. Bloom and scent. Motivational words were redundant. A living dormant thing was in us all and the season called forth its flowering. Sure, we groaned as the strong shoots forced through the woody habit of the complacent bulb. It wasn’t all perfume. We shouted at the kids, withdrew to a corner of the couch, slammed some doors. Yet other things truly at our centre, emerged. Holding on, helping out, yielding to help, asking for it, crying tears.

The danger and non-discrimination of COVID-19 gave us a refresher: that purposeful community and open one-on-one connection have beauty in their depths; yielding kindness, gratitude, patience and good health.

At my place we made cider for the first time. My lads (and wives and kiddies) were locked down with us. As we were picking apples, one son reflected “I think this is how humans are meant to live. In small groups. Labouring with common aims. Slow work; to think and converse.” One dinnertime,
the other son asked “So what was it about Bowling Alone for all those years, Rose?”

Connection. It was about connection. How fragile and how robust it is. And how
a big disrupter might help renew in us a knowledge of its value.

Rosalie Martin is a speech pathologist, criminologist, facilitator and former Tasmanian Australian of the Year.