As the world reopens post-pandemic, how will we find our way in it?

When classes moved online at the beginning of the pandemic, I swore to myself that when it was over, I would never use Zoom again. I hated the way the screen would freeze just as we were getting somewhere in class discussion, how people’s syllables would sometimes elongate into abstract, unintelligible sounds. I didn’t like speaking into the silence of politely muted microphones. I missed things I’d barely apprehended in the time before Zoom—the shuffling of papers, bodies shifting around, the sounds of people breathing. I missed the way a class could share a box of chocolates or a plate of cookies or pass around a book.

I still miss those things. But now I know that there are things that I will also miss about Zoom—not least walking over to my computer in the morning, tapping a few keys, and seeing the faces of my students appear. Some of my students are down the street, others across the world. No matter where we are, our faces are open to each other on the screen. I can see every grimace of disagreement, every smile of accord. I can almost see their questions forming before they ask them.

At my university, we’ve been told to prepare for a full campus in the fall—wonderful news, hopeful news. But I’ve heard from a few students that they’re dreading a little the return to the intensity of busyness, the social pressures, the competing events. They, too, have found things to like in their online classes. They’ve had more face time (Zoom is nothing if not face time) with their professors, more control over their own participation. They’re nervous about what a return to “normal” will mean.