Over the past year, many of us have played our different roles — professional, parent, student — all from the same space, home. Now, we’re reassessing how much to share as we emerge into the public sphere.In January, Stephanie Creary, an assistant professor of management at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, was leading a workshop about diversity, equity and inclusion practices in front of a remote audience of academic surgeons. Their work environment, she observed, would usually be a fairly formal one; still, she beamed into the doctors’ homes while sitting in her own living room in Philadelphia, with a vase of flowers on a table in the background, a painting of a wine bottle and glass on one wall.“It felt like, ‘If we are going to talk about this topic we never talk about, we should break all the rules,’” said Dr. Creary, who focuses on issues of identity and diversity in the workplace. “I think people felt more comfortable receiving it because it took the formality down.”Throughout the past year, many of our personal spaces have similarly pulled additional duty as offices, schools, gyms, even psychiatrist’s offices or music studios. “We’ve all had a front-row seat to people’s homes and their living rooms,” Dr. Creary said. And at the same time, many of us have had to click into different roles (professional, parent, student) from the same space. Naturally, the boundaries blurred: Kids careened into the Zoom frame during meetings; workout clothes doubled as office attire.We’re now beginning to make our way back into the public sphere, and though social media platforms and videoconferencing apps will continue to feature in how people log on for work and leisure, such a shift may be prompting you to consider: Is it time to reassess and create new boundaries for our online and offline selves? Here are a few ideas.Bring more of your private self to work.Before the pandemic, casual personal conversations may have been a feature of your workplace relationships — but you probably didn’t have quite the transparency and community with co-workers that developed from frequent video calls from home. Simply having a window into other people’s home environments may have deepened your connections. “Traditionally, there’s been a pretty large division between the personal and the professional,” said Adam Smiley Poswolsky, an author and speaker who focuses on relationships in the workplace. “I think one legacy of the pandemic is that’s just no longer acceptable for the vast majority of workers.”If you found the shift to be a positive, try replicating elements of it more intentionally when you see people in person. Mr. Poswolsky suggested setting aside time at the beginning of in-person meetings to have the kinds of personal conversations that might result from observing an intimate detail (what kind of tea are you drinking? is that a relative passing through?) in the corner of your camera frame.Throughout some of the darkest months of the pandemic, Corinna Nicolaou, a college personal-essay writing instructor in Pullman, Wash., almost never saw her students’ faces — they rarely turned their cameras on in class. “I felt like students were reacting in some ways to that forced sense of intimacy,” she said. “There was a weariness, I felt, to the online thing.”Nevertheless, she switched on her own camera for each class, allowing her students to see her in a more relaxed setting — she sometimes appeared in comfortable clothes, or even in bed. It introduced a new vulnerability and ease to their relationship that, she thinks, set an example for her students: They, too, could open up, at least in their writing. “The essays that I got out of students this semester were really revealing and very deep,” she said.She hopes that she can now take those lessons back into a physical classroom. “Over these last semesters, teachers have had to be flexible, be vulnerable, not have all the answers,” Ms. Nicolaou said. “Once you’ve been through that, you’ve changed.”Consider your comfort levels.Some people have preferred not to put their private lives on screens.“This sense of being exposed has been a challenge for people who do not have an environment that they feel comfortable showing to whoever is on the other side of the line,” said Munmun De Choudhury, an associate professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology who studies health and well-being online. Students from disadvantaged backgrounds who don’t have dedicated work spaces, she said, might not want to share with classmates.As an actor in New York, Anna Suzuki has fielded a fair number of video calls for work this past year — discussions with directors, table reads for television series and so many other Zoom meetings. She also shares a studio apartment with her partner.“Because I’m a pretty private person,” Ms. Suzuki said, “I had to figure out a way they would only see a blank wall behind me.”The solution was to carve out a section of a storage space in her mother’s apartment, conveniently located just below hers. Her “public” perch — an oak-colored table and black office chair — has provided some separation between her work and personal lives, allowing her to turn on and off her “performer brain,” as she described it. It hasn’t always been easy. “I really have to compartmentalize,” she said. “I still had to create a public persona at home.” Yet she also found that being able to stake such a clear divide between public and private was comforting, she said.If you’re not enthusiastic about sharing so much, that’s OK. “It’s fair for someone to say what their needs are,” Mr. Poswolsky said. “Create a boundary around, ‘I don’t want to let people into my space in a vulnerable way.’”And consider taking your time easing back into situations that now give you pause. Dr. Creary said she observed two sources of concern for those who enjoyed the firm boundaries they formed working from home and are now anticipating a return to the workplace: that the change of location will decrease productivity because distractions abound, and that it will increase exposure to unhealthy social environments. She suggested two possible strategies to establish boundaries anew: Think about what time of day you tend to work best and plan meetings and other obligations accordingly, she said, and weigh which social engagements — dinners, happy hours and the like — are essential and which ones you can decline.“It’s about pacing ourselves,” Dr. Creary said.Keep having tough conversations.According to Natalie Bazarova, an associate professor of communication at Cornell University who studies public intimacy, social media users largely shared positive personal information before the pandemic. But over the course of the past 15 months, there has been a change. “There is more acceptance of negative disclosures,” she said, citing research she published this year. “There is this common circumstance that we’re going through, and so that shapes our perception of how we think about what’s appropriate.”So what does that look like? Some social media users have posted more frequently about how the pandemic has affected their mental health, Dr. De Choudhury said. And, posts detailing social justice resources and recounting experiences with racism spread across Instagram last summer as people sought to engage online with the widespread protests that followed the murder of George Floyd. According to a 2020 article in the International Journal of Information Management, social media users have also posted more regularly about their health, particularly underlying conditions that make them vulnerable to Covid-19 — in part aiming to encourage others to take the coronavirus pandemic seriously.Such conversations can have a destigmatizing effect, making it more acceptable to be frank about the challenges individuals and groups have faced this past year (or longer; many of the structural inequalities the pandemic exposed well predated it). If you feel comfortable participating in them, continue to do so both online and off — but be mindful of sharing too much. “We have to be very conscious of the information we put out there for everyone to see,” Dr. Bazarova said.Reconsider what you post, and for whom.At the same time, you may have avoided sharing certain personal events because you thought they might garner negative reactions — maybe a workplace achievement you feared would appear tone-deaf, or travel that might be seen to contravene public health recommendations. “Who knows how many times people stopped themselves from sharing something positive?” Dr. De Choudhury said. And even if you do go ahead and post, say, a photo from a social gathering, you might feel the urge to preface your caption with an assurance that everyone in your group is vaccinated, in order to avoid judgment.Some of that restraint can be productive; you may want to give additional thought to what you share online, as well as your audience and motivations. Ask yourself: Who will receive this? What’s the context — that is, what else are people posting or discussing right now? Why do I want to share this? Is it for my own benefit, or for others? But engaging with social media shouldn’t be anxiety-producing; if it is, consider staking a clearer boundary around your accounts by making them private, or limited to close friends. Remember, too, that the boundaries that you set around personal disclosures online might be at odds with those of other people and will continue to change as the pandemic recedes.Such reflection won’t just spare you some potential negative feedback; it may also prove valuable for those who see your posts. “This idea of a communal social orientation, I think that’s a productive change,” Dr. Bazarova said. “We all have social responsibility to what happens online.”

After a year spent social distancing, mask wearing and sheltering in place, the prospect of readjusting to in-person social engagements can be a daunting one.As the days grow warmer and vaccination shots reach more arms, you may be looking ahead to getting out and about. An Axios-Ipsos poll released this month found that “the number of Americans engaging in social interactions outside the home is increasing.” And the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently issued new recommendations that individuals who have been vaccinated against the coronavirus can start to gather in small groups, without masks, offering a measure of hope in particular to those who have missed the intimacy of double dates and dinner parties.But after a year spent internalizing public health precautions for social distancing and mask-wearing, the prospect of readjusting to in-person social engagements may be a daunting one. For many, it provokes a sense of profound discomfort, apprehension or ambivalence.“It’s a new version of anxiety,” said Dr. Lucy McBride, an internist in Washington who writes a newsletter about managing the coronavirus crisis. You may discover that your continuing concerns about the virus are colliding with a new set of worries about seeing others more regularly: What am I comfortable with? How do I act? What do I say?“There’s two feelings that are continuing to exist for me,” said Allison Harris-Turk, 46, an events and communications consultant and mother of three in San Diego. Mrs. Harris-Turk created the Facebook group Learning in the Time of Corona, where many among the roughly 16,700 members are discussing the pros and cons of re-entry. “There’s the excitement and the optimism and the hope, and then there’s also the grief and the trauma and ‘oh, my goodness, how are we going to recover from this?’”Here’s how some individuals and experts are starting to think about closing the social distance.Start small.Though you may be chafing at the confines of the lockdown, remember that it’s still not entirely safe to resume social activities as before. Across most of the country, the risk of coronavirus transmission remains high.If you’re wary of re-entry, begin with a lower-stakes outing. “It’s like little baby steps getting back into it,” said Dr. David Hilden, a Minneapolis-based internist who hosts a weekly radio show during which he answers listeners’ pandemic questions. He’s observed this firsthand: Earlier this month, he met up with a friend to share a beer for the first time since the onset of the pandemic. “Now that we’ve dipped our toe in the water, a lot of Zoom meetings end with, ‘Hey, I think we can get together now,’” he said.Understand that hanging out might take more effort.After receiving her first shot of a coronavirus vaccine, Aditi Juneja, a New York-based lawyer, expected to feel the same flood of relief that some of her peers had described after getting theirs. While on the phone with a friend, she started to consider future late nights and travel to far-off destinations. “I was like, ‘Man, I want to dance on bars,’” Ms. Juneja, 30, said. “There was a euphoria about imagining the possibilities.”But after 10 minutes, she found even the fantasy versions of these scenarios exhausting. The reality can be, too; she described the sensory overload and disorientation she felt while dining outdoors with a friend for the first time in months. “I think our ability to take inputs has really lowered,” Ms. Juneja said.This is especially true for individuals suffering from social anxiety, for whom the lockdowns have offered some relief, and for whom reopening presents new stressors. But even extroverts may experience an adjustment period as our brains adapt to planning and monitoring responses to unfamiliar situations. At the beginning of the pandemic, people had to change their behaviors to comply with social distancing, mask-wearing and sheltering in place. But learning those new behaviors — and now, relearning old ones — can take a cognitive toll.“Social settings are particularly demanding,” said David Badre, the author of the book “On Task: How Our Brain Gets Things Done” and a professor of cognitive, linguistic and psychological sciences at Brown University. “When we have to really focus and plan what we’re doing, that comes with an experience of mental effort,” he continued. “It feels like a mental fatigue.”There is good news, however: You’ll most likely find it easier to relearn old behaviors than learn entirely new ones. “The key is to not avoid that effort,” Dr. Badre said. “By re-engaging, you will get used to it again.”Set boundaries for yourself.Though the past month has seen a spate of reopenings across the country, some scenarios might still set off a siren in your head. And because these facilities are open, doesn’t mean you need to go.But what if a friend or family member does want to see a movie, or dine out? If you express disagreement over what is safe, you might feel as though you are implying your companions are less responsible or unethical.Sunita Sah, a professor at University of Cambridge and Cornell University has researched this phenomenon, which she calls “insinuation anxiety.” In studies, Dr. Sah has found that patients frequently follow medical advice from their doctor even if they believe their doctor to have a conflict of interest, and that job candidates often answer interview questions they know are illegal to ask. These reactions come partly out of concern that to disagree would suggest the other person — the doctor or the job interviewer — is not trustworthy.A similar situation can play out if you’re confronted with someone whose attitude toward public-health protocols differs from your own. Dr. Sah’s research has shown that when individuals have the opportunity to weigh their decisions in private, they are less likely to experience this anxiety and do something that makes them uncomfortable. She recommended writing down the boundaries that you would like to adhere to and taking time before agreeing to someone else’s plan.“Assess your own risk level and comfort,” Dr. Sah said, “so you’re very clear about what you would and would not like to do.” This will also provide you with a clear document of how your comfort levels are changing over time as you readjust.Brace for tough conversations.Over the past year, public-health guidance often wildly varied on federal, state and even city levels, with some areas flinging open their doors while experts still advised caution. This has also been reflected in interpersonal relationships. It’s created friction between couples, families and friends, and prompted individuals to ask challenging, sometimes seemingly intrusive questions. Now, you may be adding “Are you vaccinated?” to that list. (On Twitter, one woman recently proposed “re-entry doulas” to help families navigate conversations about setting boundaries.)Still, it will continue to be important to have these conversations in the coming months. “This isn’t abstract,” said Marci Gleason, an associate professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin whose lab has been surveying relationships in quarantine. “It comes directly to the question of whether we can socialize with others or not, in the way that they want to.” Sometimes, it can feel like a proxy battle over how much you value each other’s friendship. Be open about your own fears and vulnerabilities, and make it clear that when you disagree, you’re expressing your own preference and not rejecting the other person. Keep it simple, too, especially with friends or relatives with whom you don’t frequently have emotional, candid talks.This empathy and candor will also be an asset if you find that your friends and peers have developed the tendency to over share, either out of anxiety or being starved for conversation. (You may be doing it yourself, too.) If a conversation subject makes you uncomfortable or anxious, say so.“Being really open and direct is the best way,” said Dr. Danesh Alam, a psychiatrist and the medical director of behavior health services at Northwestern Medicine Central Dupage Hospital. Dr. Alam suggested studying up for conversations, preparing some questions and topics in order to chat with more intention and keep things on topic.Take your time.It’s OK if you don’t feel ready to see people socially again. Through the challenges of the lockdown period, you may have found that “your mental health is served best when you have time for calm and rest and introspection,” Dr. McBride said. So pace yourself while considering the benefits of getting back out there: Even casual interactions have shown to foster a sense of belonging and community. “Social interaction is critical to our existence,” Dr. Alam said. Remember, too, that there are bound to be some weird moments as you start seeing others more regularly and your pandemic instincts (no hugging) and before-times instincts (“Do you want a bite of this?”) collide. “If you’re comfortable going to a dinner at a small family restaurant, you can do that,” Dr. Hilden said. “If you want to wait a month or two, that’s OK, too.”