Sage Creek students and numerous other high schoolers have struggled to maintain their community and stay connected. Now, people are finding new and unique alternatives to keep their social connections alive.

People have received countless negative effects from the quarantine atmosphere. 

 “Many quarantined individuals experienced both short and long-term mental health problems, including stress, insomnia, emotional exhaustion, and substance abuse.” According to Science News.

This may not look good for high schoolers, still, there were some who have adapted to their new environment. 

Sophomore Sierra Huff has coped with the boredom and prolonged screen time by practicing the martial art jiu-jitsu. 

“I feel [jiu-jitsu] just really boosts my energy because it’s a day of the week I get to do what I like to do,” Huff said. 

Jiu-Jitsu created motivation in her work, helping her to keep mental balance in these unbalanced times.

Freshman Animesh Johnson has a similar experience to Huff with social distancing while biking with his friend.

“We just connect because we’re able to talk to each other after a long time of isolation,” Johnson said.

When Johnson can’t bike, he connects with his friends through Gmail’s feature, Google Chat. 

“So far I only have four Google Chats and that’s definitely going to expand,” Johnson said.

Coping with the loss of social interactions is not easy for many, however, students have found new and creative ways to make and contact new friends. 

Using the app Discord, Huff made numerous friends. 

“Sometimes I would meet up with random people,” Huff said, “they would have the same political views or we would just have a fun time talking and just playing a game, and stuff like that.”

Social media has assisted her to stay in contact with old friends as well as new ones. 

Through her history class, she developed a friendship with her social science teacher, Ron Cordell. 

“He kept staying interactive with my assignments,” Huff said, “…I felt like I was able to share my opinion with him.”

Huff felt comfortable in the environment Cordell created for all his students. 

In this atmosphere, she bonded with a student in the class as well.

“She’s a really nice person and we help each other on some assignments and stuff like that,” Huff said, “So I feel like I’ve gotten closer to her.”

Through distance learning, Huff realized how much they have in common. 

“I know she does soccer,” Huff said, “…I think it’s really cool that she does an active sport like I do.”

When sophomore Nathanael Key is feeling bored, he starts to overthink and reflect on negative moments in his life.

“When you overthink, you bring up things that you necessarily don’t want to think about from the past,” Key said. 

However, when Key had nothing to do, he and his friends found new hobbies in a distant and safe manner. 

“…We get bored, [because]we don’t really have any hobbies,” Key said, “So we’ll go and find hobbies such as fishing… a lot of us have just started to pick up fishing or some of us are picking up video games or some of us are picking up drones.”

With Key’s determination to find hobbies, he found many fun opportunities that others fail to experience because of their lack of searching.

Students experienced social struggles, others sought new ways to relate to their friends, and some have made new friends through remote learning and social media.

Everyone is in different places these days with sports, social distancing, working hard, lack of new friends or more new friends. It all depends on their ability to find people with similar interests.

All highschoolers who have been having fun and have adapted to their circumstances have one thing in common. 

“We all have the same playful spirit,” Key said.