After months of lockdowns, people are learning that isolation can be quite a challenge.
In an effort to balance the risks of the pandemic with their need to be social, people are trying to find solutions to adjust to their new reality. Restrictions, stay-at-home orders, and quarantine rules have been playing a major role in the first half of 2020. For many, this amount of time has tested their patience in regards to staying home and is causing depression and anxiety in many. A recent survey of U.S. adults found that 13.6% reported symptoms of serious psychological distress, up from 3.9% in 2018.
This has led many to look for alternatives that allow them to feel real human connections once more. The most famous of these alternatives is called “quaranteaming.”
According to Urban Dictionary, “Quaranteam is the people you choose to live with during a coronavirus quarantine.” By creating these new petit comités, people are overcoming the feelings of loneliness, anxiety, or depression that comes with spending too much time alone. Creating a quaranteam has its own guidelines in order to maintain a healthy connection between its members. These guidelines may include restrictions in whom members can visit, or remaining 6 feet apart from one another within the quaranteam itself.
For Hispanics, who have a closer-knit connection with their family, quaranteaming is a solution for getting together more often and fighting the loneliness that they are more prone to feeling. By implementing this bubble-like approach correctly, they benefit by reducing the risk of contracting COVID themselves – or passing it on to their families. Hispanics commonly prioritize taking care of their loved ones over their own interests.
Moms (Crest’s core target) are using another quaranteaming method for getting their kids to interact academically with their peers, referred to as learning pods. According to the New Observer, Learning pods are a system in which parents agree to hire a tutor, take on a small number of kids, and guide them through (controlled) group classes. This solution not only allows kids to study and interact with other kids, but it also allows parents to focus primarily on their jobs. This becomes particularly relevant to Hispanic parents with front-line jobs, that simply cannot afford to stay at home and guide their kids through online classes.
Quaranteaming is not risk-free but it brings a compromising solution to the table. This new way of interacting is becoming more common among people that are looking for alternatives through these restricted times. For marketers, the quaranteam era represents a new trend within society where they can leverage to connect emotionally with audiences that have spent a significant amount of time isolated and are reconnecting with humans once again.
by Andres Talavera, Conill, August 10th
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