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By Zoé Perko Introduction It’s 7:53 a.m. I hurry through the endless drizzle of a Brussels winter, weaving my way toward the subway station. Businesspeople stride across the crowded sidewalks, […]

Talja Blokland, Robert Vief and Daniela Krüger ask how the political measures to slow down the coronavirus, especially by not meeting other people, affected how people organised their support for challenges they faced. Drawing on representative survey results from four neighbourhoods in Berlin in both 2019 and 2020, they show that, before the lockdown, a majority of their respondents communicated face-to-face to confront their most pressing personal challenges and did so outside of their home. Under COVID19 restrictions, digital exchanges became more important – but curiously, they did not make us stay home.