Humanity faced one of the most significant health crises in 2020 as the COVID-19 virus spread worldwide, impacting people’s perception of life and values. Lockdowns, uncertainty, isolation, and loss of beloved ones changed the global society and forced every member to revise their aspirations and roles (Fogarty et al.). Moreover, the demand in prioritizing physical and mental health influenced people’s relationships and how they treat one another (Fogarty et al.). Consequently, social culture, connection, self-care requirements, and coping approaches became different from the ones various groups had before the coronavirus strike. This paper compares and contrasts social gatherings, networking, safety, communicational processes, perception of mental health, and balance in pre-pandemic society and today’s post-pandemic one.
At the end of 2019, all traditional holidays were spent with relatives, friends, and beloved ones in person, and such gatherings were typical for societies worldwide. However, the pandemic, which forced people to maintain distance and be isolated, made the meetings impossible and unsafe to organize and participate in. Compared to the pre-pandemic world, social gatherings are perceived as a measure to apply only if an occasion is hugely significant (Fogarty et al.). Communities primarily seek the remote opportunities to contact and respectfully react to a member’s decline, while before pandemics wishing to stay at home could be recognized as deviant. Global lockdowns impacted networking by uniting individuals from different countries online and eliminating the ways of making new connections in person. People experience behavioral switch to the introvert-related approaches as a coping mechanism to uncertainty (Singh and Singh). In contrast to the pre-pandemic world, today’s society stopped valuing meetings for business and community contact.
Safety became critical for all societies, and such pleasurable experiences as gatherings, traveling, or crowded events were filtered by ranging the risk of catching a disease. Compared to visiting musical festivals, and other countries, and blogging about such adventures was common for people before the pandemic, in the post-pandemic society, such posts might even be judged (Fogarty et al.). Moreover, the willingness to address prevention measures forced communities to change the rules, and, in contrast to the pre-pandemic world, members value safety rather than the visually appealing events.
In 2020, when the pandemic became global, businesses, educational institutions, governments, and other communities were forced to make all communications digital. The demand for the frequent online connection to maintain the working processes lead to overall technological development (Singh and Singh). Consequently, today’s society enjoys using the commodities of digital interconnection rather than the pre-pandemic’s preferences of meeting and working in person. Moreover, compared to the pre-pandemic period, individuals experience more mental health issues, which emerged due to forced isolation (Singh and Singh). Such circumstances led societies to promote mental self-care by sharing the importance of work-life balance.
COVID-19 changed communities worldwide due to the demand to eliminate the standard ways of socializing and connecting with others. Comparison to the pre-pandemic world revealed that today humanity prioritizes safety and creates technological decisions to provide high-quality work and communication remotely. Individuals develop different coping mechanisms to avoid mental health disorders and respond to the uncertainty by addressing self-care first. Although values and cultural perceptions of communication changed under the pressure of health challenges, people are still the social species, thus communities found alternative ways to stay connected.
References
Fogarty, Philippa, et al. “Coronavirus: How Can Society Thrive Post-Pandemic?” BBC, 2020. Web.
Singh, Jaspreet, and Jagandeep Singh. “COVID-19 and its impact on society.” Electronic Research Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, vol. 2, no. 1, 2020, pp. 168-172.