Before quarantine, students made friends a number of different ways: at work, school, during extracurriculars, etc. But the transition from seeing people in real life every day to only being able to communicate online isn’t easy for everyone. Because of this, students have struggled to make friends in quarantine.

One way people have been making friends online is via social media. With apps like Instagram and Yubo, users can meet new people just by leaving a comment or sending a DM.

Sophomore Haven Golliday has been making friends over quarantine by using Instagram. “During quarantine I’ve mainly made friends online, by talking to new people on Instagram. On Instagram I can find people that have the same interests as me and just start talking to them, which I think is so cool,” Golliday said.

Another app students are using to make friends is Yubo. Yubo is a social media platform specifically made to make friends online. Yubo is similar to dating apps like Tinder, where the user swipes left or right on people to match with them, except Yubo matches you with potential friends, instead.

Senior Veronika Iordan uses Yubo to make friends in her area. “I like Yubo because it’s helped me make friends from Maryland during Covid, which is awesome because it means they don’t just have to be online friends, and we can hang out after quarantine,” Iordan said.

Golliday says that in order to make friends, the key is to be bold. “Sometimes, people will talk to you first, but if you just wait for people to DM you, you could miss out on friendships with people you think are cool, just because you won’t message them first, so you have to be bold and reach out when you want to make friends,” Golliday said.

The idea of reaching out to people you’ve never met in real life might be a bit too outside of your comfort zone, but that’s OK! Now that school has started, students can still make friends with the people in their classes like they would have in physical school, by reaching out via email or social media.

By reaching out to classmates, students can make friends with students that they’ve already met, and having a friend in each class can not only make this school year more pleasant, but can be useful when students need help in their classes.

All things considered, while making friends in quarantine is majorly different from making them in person, there are still ways for students to connect and make friends online while social distancing.