Nowadays, Discord is rolling out screen sharing to its mobile users. It’s a smart move; earlier this summer, the company’s mobile app achieved lifetime downloads every day.
Mobile screen sharing means that you can simply share your screen – and whatever you’re viewing – with anyone in a voice channel. That means you can watch everything from TikTok to Twitch with all your friends around the world in real time. While chatting.
I recently saw a demo of the feature, and most of all, I found the simplicity to be astonishing. In our pandemic year, I spent so much time on virtual socializing – sometimes on Discord, sometimes not – and it underlined the importance of informal meeting places; spontaneity is one of the many things that the pandemic has taken out of everyday life.
Features like these can bring a little bit of that back to social interaction, I think, as it allows users to get in and out at any time. I can screenshare to a Discord voice channel and all my friends can just join me whatever I feel like, be it Among us or just scroll through my camera roll.
Anything that makes it easier to be with people is good, in my book. But considering how much time I’ve spent with people on various Discord servers this year, a feature like this feels quietly revealing. I miss hanging out on a friend’s couch and not talking about anything in particular; after this year it is something that I will never take for granted again.
This new feature is only as good as technology can replicate that feeling.