Many people lost beloved persons; their grief cannot be put in words. This text focuses on one social aspect of the pandemic for which MediaVerse can provide a solution. This is in no way meant to diminish or deny the hurt of people who had to deal with the medical effects of the virus.
Social Distancing was one of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic that affected people’s social lives in 2020. People were forced to work from home, were told to not meet friends or go to parties and clubs or other public events, and last but not least there have been periods when hospitals and elderly home care institutions would not accept guests.
Luckily, new media and Internet technologies helped a lot to support. The opportunity to have video calls had had tremendous effects on daily work before but became even more widespread in 2020. The fact that so many people have started to use such tools from home also enabled many people to keep closer contact with friends and families. The pandemic, aka CORONA, also spurred a lot of creativity. People created memes of all sorts and the art-at-home challenge inspired so many people to re-create artworks while they could not visit museums.
So, the good news is that, if people have access to simple technology, they will use it to share feelings and ideas. MediaVerse will support such creativity and the urge to share time and ideas and it will even go further: MediaVerse does not only enable sharing media when they are done but gives people the opportunity to create stories and media together. Families can come together in a co-creation space and, for example, build virtual rooms where they can put images or videos of family events or songs they sang together and later share these experiences with the rest of the family and friends.
How exactly all this will be at the end of the project is still being defined, but the spirit of co-creation and sharing is already casting its shadow and future festivities may include a lot more virtual presents and families may be joining weeks before to create these presents together.