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By SASHA PEZENIK, ABC News
(NEW YORK) Peering over the brim of our masks or into the glow of group Zoom chats, we have watched the COVID-19 pandemic upend our world, and how we relate to it.
After having spent more than a year covering our faces and staying 6 feet apart from others, the way we converse and behave has had to change to fit our new reality.
Experts probing the lasting impacts of this era have found shifting structures in our social interaction, empathy and self-perception: COVID-19 has altered the alchemy of our human element.
“Our masks and distance provide us safety, but there’s a cost, and the cost is conversational closeness,” Dr. Paul Ekman, a renowned psychologist who pioneered the study of emotions and facial expressions, told ABC News.
How a year of wearing masks and talking on Zoom has changed us go.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from go.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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Language mutates. As society changes, neologisms sprout, new words become codified – app, selfie, meme, troll – and old ones die out. And the rise of new technologies also impacts our non-verbal communication.
Linguistics professor Vyv Evans has suggested that some of our basic hand gestures, or “emblems”, will soon die out due to younger generations not understanding them: things like scribbling on your hand in a restaurant to signal for the bill, or making a winding motion to ask someone to put their car window down.
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In July 2020, TikTok user Daniel Alvarado documented how his kids put their hands flat against their face to denote a phone call, instead of the traditional closed fist with outstretched thumb and pinky. Cue 2.6m views and an internet meltdown.