 The adaptation to the current environment produces innovations that are long lasting online interaction is definitely one of the things that will remain with us. People who have regularly scheduled more frequent interaction with distant friends and relatives, something they didn't use to do. They're doing it to compensate for the lack of things like travel and other social interaction in town and bars and restaurants, but they're incorporating people who are far away. And now they're going to want to keep doing that and keep being in touch with those people in a more interactive way than they have been in the past. I think the positives, the people who are doing really well in this situation are probably the people who are doing really well already. I don't think there are a lot of people who are having trouble or difficult or terrible relationships in life at home are now finding themselves suddenly doing better. Now, if you interview people and ask them have the pandemic improved your relationships in your family life, the people who say yes are probably already headed in that direction. One thing that is certainly happening that families and relationships is that a lot of things are on hold. Some of it is sort of technical or the practical things like marriage and divorces weddings are canceled and divorces are difficult to process. You see a reduction in those things in real time. Some things are just not happening because you can't get them done, but other things are not happening because the drivers of family change are just being impaired. People are meeting new people less casual interaction is not happening as much people are putting a stop to plans that they would have had before. I think it's very likely that we're going to see a substantial drop in birth rates people are holding off at least temporarily from their decisions to have children. We have seen millions of young adults living with their parents that would not have been in previous years those people are not getting married maybe not meeting people, and probably not having children are getting pregnant this year that that might have otherwise, both from the opportunities for things being impaired by isolation and also the change decision making that is being affected by the massive uncertainty that people are experiencing. It means everything is ground to a halt in family life. It's a slight exaggeration, but a lot of things have ground to a halt or slowed down substantially. Successful families are a lot of bad security and comfortable interdependence and being able to rely on each other that especially the case for children, but it's also the case for people in intimate relationships, adults. So the people who were secure in the emotional as well as material sense are probably the people who are doing better now and in a lot of ways. The downside is we can't measure this but the terrible and abusive situations that are being experienced in many homes and families are going undetected. Both are formal ability to detect and route those out like school social workers and nurses and hospitals, and all the people that all the ways that people interact to prevent abuse, but also just the informal interactions and connections that people have that are buffers against trouble at home. So the people who are socially isolated now are not having them don't have the ability to to have those support systems. One thing that has happened is with men working at home is that there's been an opportunity for men to do more childcare and housework. On the one hand, people are spending more time at home, which is a gender and equal space. And so women are doing more parenting homeschooling and all that. On the other hand, in, because men are home more they're also doing more so they're maybe not doing so much a greater short share but they're doing a greater quantity of housework and childcare and care work generally. The people who are able to negotiate those changes are going to do better in this situation. So if you had the capacity to communicate discuss negotiate things like the division of labor and responsibilities and care work at home, the people who already had the relationship infrastructure in place to have those conversations successfully are probably also doing better at handling that flexibility now people who don't talk about those things, or couldn't talk about those things or couldn't come to agreement because of conflict. I'm not sure how they're able to work out the changes that they have to do now to adapt. One thing about low stakes informal unplanned interactions, we count on so much is that we don't realize we count on them so much and we often don't do a lot to make them intentional and that's part of the point. A lot of that is suddenly gone in professional workplaces. In sociology, we're very aware of what we call the strength of weak ties, which are the people that you know a little that those are the people you really need when it's time to get a job. The people who you know enough to ask for help, but they're distant enough from you that they know a lot of people that you don't. Your best friend isn't the one who's going to help you get a job because you know all the same people. If that person you just know a little, who's going to be most helpful, and that applies to a lot of things that we have to get done practically those weak ties turn out to be very important. When we cultivate them is a big question. Part of it is technological. The communication companies are working on this to do this. The simplest form is like the breakout room on zoom or things you can do in your online meetings, but we know that's going to be a problem. Because the rules of that kind of interaction are not explicit so remaking it is complicated or difficult, and the norms are sort of up for grabs and in those in a space where we're there we haven't developed before. If you don't know what's appropriate. In my case, I have students who might drop into my office to ask me a question but they might be reluctant to schedule an appointment for an online chat to get themselves to get them on the calendar. And then we get to the essence of those kinds of relationships and interactions to get the benefits from them that we have come to count on. And this requires us to really think through the sociology of this to sit down and take apart and try to rebuild the things about relationships that might not have even realized were so important going back to normal is a myth. For one thing, normal is how we got here. So we don't really want to go back to normal being unprepared and having all the, all the things that have made this worse, or the seeds for that we're already there so we don't want to go back to something like normal which is not possible anyway, people will have some sort of rebound. I think a rebound will be will there be a baby boom of people who are so excited they just start having children again, where we have a golden age of roaring 20s, which is what we had after the last great pandemic, exuberance and outward looking excitement. That's possible. Partly depends on whether the victory over the virus in the end is real and sudden and observable or gradual and into moralizing war of attrition is really to be determined and some of that is dependent on the science, but it's also a question of how we will react to the pandemic as it unfolds still, 6, 8, 10, 12 months from now we might be able to move about like we did something like in the old days, maybe with some masks and distancing. But the things that don't come back could be very big. For example, if we don't have cruises and movies anymore well those are giant industries. What about Broadway, if that doesn't come back, you know, that's a big change. So that last 10% of getting back to normal makes a very big difference. The people who are spending a lot of time together without other people around are they going to continue wanting to do that. Those healthy good relationships of people who are coping well are probably going to want to transition towards being more outward facing. I'm afraid it's the people who are less social or less pro social that are going to remain turned inward and keep those barriers up around them and their families in their homes. And I'm afraid that that will have a corrosive impact on society and social life. I think it's a story of divergence where people who are doing better or who are better prepared will be able to integrate their new selves into the new reality much better. It's about being psychologically prepared as well as socially and economically in the big sense and in the outside world. One of the things that is dislocating for people is the overall narrative of history. How is society going? That has a lot to do with social mobility. Do we think our kids are going to do better than ourselves and that sort of thing. And if we do, if we're safer than that assumption, then we feel ourselves the masters of our universe and we're comfortable making long term plans. Banana bread is a short term response, redesigning your home, planning to have more children, making long term career investments that you don't expect to have short term rewards. These are things that people do when they're confident about the future for family life. That means the lack of confidence in the future means fewer children, less marriage. I'm pretty confident that we're going to see those trends that were already happening continue as the data comes in from this year and into next year. The difference between inside world and outside world is being heightened. The negative side of that is the sense of danger and distrust. We were told that we should wear masks to protect others. I don't think that's the way most people are built psychologically. If you look at the way people are wearing their masks, I think they're thinking about protecting themselves. I also see that they are much less careful in their social distancing in their social people are much less careful when they're around people who they see as like them. So around their own neighborhood they're less likely to wear a mask and if they leave the neighborhood or interact people who are more different from themselves. I hear that the downside of that is building our walls higher and our distrust of others increasing. So that is the downside of reshaping our home lives in ways that seem positive. We're going to do great things at home, but it's partly because we're afraid of and we distrust the outside world. So that's a real challenge for social cohesion in the future. Who are we going to be after this. It's an important question to ask ourselves if we can make that intentional. I think that would be an important question who do we want to be after this. If we can ask that question in a positive way. I think it could be powerful. Some of that could be altruistic and outward thinking I can't wait to get out there again and help people and and meet new people and be friendly toward them. I think we can encourage that attitude towards that big question. I think that'll be a positive development.