By Jonathan McQuie
As the majority of the country self-isolates and social distances in accordance with the federal government’s instructions, young people are utilising the online tools at their disposal to form community despite the distance between them.
Berwick College teacher’s aide Anthony Groza has been at his home in Hampton Park since the start of the school holidays, and isn’t certain as to whether he’ll have work once school returns.
While Mr. Groza is typically comfortable in his own company, many of his friends are extroverts and crave interaction with others.
“I make sure that I’m keeping up with my friends, but I don’t go out of my way all too often to catch up with them. I know that other people aren’t like me, and they do require social interaction.”
To ensure that they have a safe space to connect during this period, he decided to use the online platform Discord.
Discord is a chat app, similar to other communications platforms such as Slack or Google Hangouts, and is geared towards allowing video gamers to coordinate and talk while playing.
On Discord, members are able to create chat rooms known as servers, where users can invite others to join.
Establishing the server took a significant amount of effort, as Mr. Groza copied and pasted an invite to almost every person on his Facebook friend list for an hour.
“The only reason I didn’t do everyone was because my hand was cramping.”
For the purposes of creating community, part of Discord’s appeal is that it can be broken down into sub-spaces known as channels to discuss specific topics.
“I’ve set up a second voice chat for people to hop on and study and keep each other accountable. We’re going to be working and studying and ensuring that we’re focusing on that.”
“They can play some games and have a good laugh. A lot of people are missing the opportunity to do so at the minute. It’s providing a way for people to connect irl.”
By Wednesday 22 April, there were 73 people on the server, as his friends invited people they knew.
Mr. Groza has enjoyed seeing the organic growth of this online community beyond his own circle of friends.
“It’s cool being able to see new people on the server meeting others an being able to chill with them. It’s bringing my social circles together a bit.”
Even once isolation ends, there’s hopes that the server’s life will continue.
“’I’m assuming by the time restrictions are lifted, a solid community and culture will have developed on the server and it will be in most parts self-sustaining. It will be cool to keep it up and host game sessions and things like that.”
