Screens That Bring People Closer: Using Technology to Strengthen Your Connections

Technology has an obvious downside when it comes to connection. A person absorbed in a phone isn’t sending an invitation to talk, and a room full of glowing screens can feel lonelier than a quiet one.

But the same tools that pull attention away from the people in front of us are remarkably good at closing distance with the people who aren’t. Anyone who leaned on a video call during a stretch of separation — a deployment, a difficult schedule, a family member living several states away — has felt the difference between isolation and a screen that keeps a relationship warm. For first responders, whose schedules rarely line up neatly with anyone else’s, that capability matters more than most.

Here are a few ways to put technology to work on your social connections rather than against them.

Social platforms and interest-based communities

Staying in touch with friends and family is the obvious use, but the more underrated feature of platforms like Facebook is the private, interest-based group. These spaces put you in contact with people who share a specific piece of your life — which, for first responders, can mean the rare experience of not having to explain the context first.

A sampling of groups created by and for first responders and their families:*

• First Responder’s Network
• Firefighters Worldwide
• Firefighter’s Community
• Women in Law Enforcement, EMS, and Firefighting
• Law Enforcement Family
• Fitness Ops: Police, Fire, Military
• Brotherhood of Christian Law Enforcement Officers
• Wildland Firefighters

On the professional side, LinkedIn is worth more than its reputation as a recruiting tool suggests. It’s a practical way to keep track of colleagues as careers move, follow people whose work you admire, and open the door to mentorship relationships that would be hard to start cold. If you’ve never built a profile, it’s a small investment with a long tail.

Inside your own agency

Ironically, some of the hardest communication happens closest to home. Shift rotation, multiple stations, and periods of heightened operational demand can leave crews working in the same organization without ever overlapping.

Shared activities online

Connection tends to stick better when it’s built around doing something rather than just talking. A few options:

• Online gaming. Console and PC games with voice chat let a group spend real time together from separate houses. The activity gives conversation somewhere to go, which is often easier than a call with no agenda.
• Watch parties. Group video calls handle everything from a class to catching up with a grandparent, but they also work well as a standing movie night. Browser extensions like Teleparty sync playback across a group on several streaming services, and Apple’s SharePlay does the same within FaceTime.
• Virtual game nights. Party-game platforms like the Jackbox series need only one person to own the game — everyone else joins from a phone browser. Discord is another strong option for a recurring hangout, with voice, video, and built-in activities in one place.

The bigger point

The tools change constantly. Some of the platforms that carried people through 2020 no longer exist, and whatever replaces today’s options will look different in a few years. What doesn’t change is the underlying move: choosing to use the device in your hand to reach someone rather than to disappear from the room.

By that measure, staying connected to the people in your social and professional circles is genuinely easier than it has ever been — as long as you’re deliberate about it.

*Lighthouse Health & Wellness does not endorse or have any affiliation with the Facebook groups named in this article.