How is pandemic influencing social-skill concerns?

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The pandemic is definitely hurting social skills, or practicing social skills and being in situations where you can work on your social skills or practice them. Less opportunities to meet new people, means having less friends and less social situations to be in.
But let me tell you this. Instead, you can do it on the phone with various people or companies you make a call to. The only disadvantage is the skills you might learn, wont be helpful when you start seeing people face to face when the pandemic calms down. If you have a problem with facial expressions, or the way you stand / look at people, these problems will remain. They dont see how you're doing these things on the phone. They only hear your voice.

My social skills had been at an all-time low by around January of this year before changes in society started happening. So I lost no social skills from a pandemic simply because I had none to lose in the first place.

Agree - I have noticed a loss of motivation/purpose to interact with other people in 2020. I've stopped trying to be social. I've almost completely stopped calling my parents who live local. I can't get motivated even to call family.

Lately, I've increasingly empathized with what many NTs (at least small-talk wise) have felt about social contact limitations necessary to curb the pandemic.

I've had to learn to be more verbal and direct, using Zoom with doctors. I absolutely hate being on camera. I don't try making eye contact because I don't do that even in real life ... but it's still awkward being face to face, feeling like I've invited them into my home.

I'm more aware of the awkward silences when I'm on camera. I'm more aware of whose turn it is to speak. It's all really hard for me, but I suppose I've made some gains.

Crying on Zoom is the worst. Last week I cried and didn't have a tissue at hand.

As mentioned, the pandemic has limited opportunities to venture out e.g., dining-out - hence diminished opportunities to glean insights from important experiences via osmosis.

The direct impact of the pandemic on my daily life has been minimal. I don't feel like it's taking much of a toll on my social skills either. I'm used to spending long periods with little to no contact with people and only interacting occasionally (on a one-to-one basis) when needed.

I was just very anxious at first when there were occasions like when my banking app didn't work properly and I had to go to the bank, because going out is always taxing, and then managing to NEVER touch my face and stuff like that while also dealing with people and the weather and whatnot is ten times more taxing. But after having gone out a few times during this period, I think it has become automatic enough, so it doesn't make me as anxious anymore.

I haven't had any friends that I see in person for years now, so... that hasn't changed.

Lately, I've felt that many thoughtful NTs (esp. NT-like with High Functioning Autism (HFA)) might increasingly become receptive towards learning from the experiences that those of us with HFA have lived-with all along.

I've personally taken an NT-like advocate; that is the experiences felt from diminished opportunities for small talk with familiar people.

Regarding HFA perspectives, limited opportunities to glean social-skill insights from important experiences via osmosis.

I find this scamdemic to be an aspie's gold mine, social-wise. People who are still social distancing, I want nothing to do with them, and they still stay home to being with. But people who are willing and ready to go out again are strangely forgiving of other people's low-level social awkwardness. They just attribute it to "a side effect of social distancing for too long", rather than innately poor social skills. Which means little mistakes like standing too close, not shaking hands firmly enough, hugging too closely or too standoffishly, saying something off-topic in a group conversation, and such, are forgiven, rather than seen as "creepy". The people we meet are often starved for human contact too, and willingly give a socially awkward aspie the benefit of doubt, rather than push him/her away at the first sign of social awkwardness.

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Apart from slightly reducing the number of COVID hospitalisations, lockdown is actually doing more harm than good to people's mental states.

My little niece is nearly 4 and hasn't had the chance to go to nursery or anything, and she's due to start school in September. It's quite worrying really, because she's missing out on mixing with other children during the most important years of her social skills development. It is very important for infants aged 2-4 to be playing with other children their age, and being isolated indoors during those years can have an affect on how they develop socially and interact with their peers. Yes, NTs still do need to be in social environments with their peers to develop and learn their social skills.

Most of my off-work social interactions before the pandemic, centered around going on excursions, visiting the cinema, expositions, conventions, book clubs, and the like.. based in meet-up groups and organisations for common interests and hobbies. Needless to say that stopped dead from March 2020.

Now, most of my interactions are at work itself, other than visits to the store or interacting with my mom every weekend. I work at a warehouse here in the Netherlands, but virtually all warehouse personnel at my job are migrant workers from Poland, Hungary, Romania and other East and South European countries. I barely ever communicate in Dutch anymore, or with people who have similar interests.

I haven't had many opportunities to practice my social skills offline. I am using an online social platform however, that operates via a VR headset, and that space is filled with communities of geeks and nerds and weeaboos, so that has been my primary source of social fun time.

I got my 4 cats since about half a year before the pandemic hit the Netherlands, so social distancing and isolation has in short is helping to turn me into the crazy cat hermit I predicted I'd become a couple years ago, it's only happening at an accelerated rate now. I'm quickly losing interest in whetting my offline social skills and I'm not really seeing the urgency of re-learning what skills I've lost. If anything, the situation has made me realize how of overrated importance it was in the first place that I venture outside my house to meet people, even people of like minds. It was always a headache, now I guess that headache is gone and I see offline social interactions for what they are: a nuisance distracting me from pursuing my interests in peace and quiet, and deflecting me from having wonderful interactions online that are in a better-controlled environment.