Virtual Parties in America: Press Release of the Week!
Not being able to hang out with your friends in the physical sense due to lockdown regulations can be emotionally tolling and lonely, especially if you are isolating on your own or with just one other person. Thanks to video calling apps like Skype, FaceTime and Zoom, we are able to connect our loved ones face-to-face, making it feel like an at-home party! Plus, you can add multiple people to a call so none of your friends feel FOMO. Improb.com, leading lifestyle, gear gadget and style magazine, conducted a survey of 3,100 people to find out how people are coping with lockdown by attending virtual parties with their friends.
The survey discovered that the average American attends a virtual party with their friends 3 days per week. A niche market for virtual gaming during lockdown gave rise to plenty drinking games, bar quizzes and board games that you can play online with your friends, simulating the feeling of a night out.
View the following infographic to see the average number of virtual parties people attend per week across the US: https://improb.com/virtual-party-hotspots/
The benefits of drinking from the comfort of your living room include not having to worry about losing your keys or wallet, your phone battery dying or how you will get home after a night spent drinking. It’s also easy to go overboard with drinking on your couch as a virtual party can result a real-life hangover! In fact, 1 in 10 people confess to experiencing more hangovers during lockdown than before it started. The survey found that the average number of drinks consumed by people at virtual parties is 4 – depending on the type of drink in question, this could result in a mild buzz that evening or a hangover from hell the next day!
Pick Your Poison: When asked about the type of alcohol consumed while virtual partying, it transpired that beer was the most popular with 48% of respondents saying it was their drink of choice. This was followed by wine (31%), spirits (13%) and cocktails (8%).
Another benefit of spending more time at home means not having to worry about what to wear. However, it seems some of us are missing the simple pleasures of a night out as 26% of respondents say they get dressed up for the video call when attending a virtual party.
Office drinks are a relatively common occurrence in the workplace, however, due to working from home, getting together with your fellow colleagues in person is not possible. Despite this, 1 in 10 employees working from home say they their company arranges virtual office drinks on a regular basis. This is great for keeping up team spirit and encouraging bonding between co-workers.
It seems the dating scene is still booming for singles across the US as respondents say they go on an average of 5 virtual dates per week during lockdown. This figure was 4 dates per week for women vs. 5 per week for men. These high figures could be because it is easier to go on more than one date per night as compared to if you were dating in person!
‘One positive thing to emerge from lockdown is the frequent communication we are able to maintain with our loved ones due to video calling technology, so we are able to take a break from reality to chat to our friends and family,’ Says a spokesperson for Improb.com. ‘In between group calls, it is also important to check in with your friends and see if they need someone to chat to during this time, especially if they are isolating on their own. You could also look into the world of virtual gifting for a particularly thoughtful pick-me-up!’