Virtual Communities: Refuge from the Covid-19 Pandemic
- Benjamin Lam
- Nov 2, 2021
- 3 min read
I don't think I need to go too in-depth about how the Covid-19 Pandemic changed everything. But in short, the people of the world could not go out and gather at any capacity. Anything that involved meeting with people was either moved online in some way or was cancelled completely. In this time, there was a boom in virtual community participation. Meeting online was pretty much the only way that people were able to stay in contact. People just naturally started creating and joining virtual communities to fight the feeling of isolation.
The Study:
Facebook has been the host site for many virtual community groups that were created during the pandemic. In 2020, TheGovLab did a research study where they interviewed 50 Facebook groups, 26 global academic and industry experts on governing virtual communities, as well as approximately 15,000 internet users surveyed across 15 or so countries. A study with a pretty large sample size in the midst of a pandemic that forces people to be online more than ever, pretty good conditions to run a study for this specific reason if I do say so myself. From the survey, it was found that users in 11 out of 15 countries claimed that their most important group was an online group. Furthermore, three out of the 11 groups had 50% of their respondents claim that their online groups were more important than their offline groups. The results of this study has some interesting reports like how people are still able to experience a sense of connection to the group despite the lack of face-to-face interaction. It was also found that many leaders of the group, run the group of the love for the group, they don't receive any kind of compensation to run the group, enforce the rules, and interact with other virtual community members.
Reasons Why:
Based off of the study done by TheGovLab, Socialmediatoday did came to their own conclusions about virtual communities. One of the reasons that is listed which I think everyone can agree on is that digital communities can very easily grow in the number of members at a very fast rate. Especially during the pandemic, people seek out other people who share a common interest. With no where else to go, and no one to talk to in-person, virtual communities are going to be the place people look to. The next reason is that virtual communities give marginalized people the opportunity to build and grow their own virtual community. I think this one proved to be pretty effective last summer following the events of George Floyd's murder. After that event, many virtual groups started popping up trying to gather people and inform them about the injustice that minority groups face and how changes need to be made to society. Again, Covid-19's affect on the world pushed everyone into the online space.
My Thoughts:
As of writing this now, we are not in complete lockdown like we were in the beginning of the pandemic. I am living on campus again, I can see my friends, I can go out to the gym, and just be outside without too much of a hassle. But during lockdown it was quite surreal being not leaving the house and just wearing pajamas all day. All of my classes were online, either in the form of a zoom call or just PowerPoints that I would only ever read if there was an exam coming up. Each zoom class was its own little community as the professor was the leader of the class and us as the students would listen and interact amongst ourselves to get through the course. Our little virtual communities of our classes only lasted as long as the semester did.
In the summer of 2020, me, my siblings, my cousins, and a lot of our family friends ended up moving to Minecraft to spend time with each other and talk. We made ourselves a community by placing ourselves in a virtual world that functioned as the host site for all of our interactions. My uncle had us try another virtual site where we could get together and play minigames that the site had. Through the summer we had our own little virtual community that would jump around to different platforms whenever we felt like it. It wasn't the summer that I was expecting to have, but having a lot of free time that summer to spend time with friends and family was pretty memorable.
Hutchinson, A. (2021, February 24). New report looks at the rising influence of online communities.
Social Media Today. Retrieved October 21, 2021, from
The power of virtual communities. The Power of Virtual Communities. (n.d.). Retrieved November 14,
Comments