Changed on Behavior Culture during COVID-19 Pandemic

It is almost one year since the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world with no accurate statistics that may predict its tremendous impacts on our life, business, education, and future. However, as human beings, we are still divided on the pandemic’s reality, how to deal with it, and recently the vaccines and treatment methods. However, the virus has killed (and continue in the killing toll) the highest number of humans since WWII.

This paper will emphasis on the “Social Distancing (SD): phenomenon and the way it impacted our lives in three interrelated areas, namely, Social Life, Business Aspects, and Affected Behaviors in Education. The paper will focus on the country of my origin, Saudi Arabia and the country where I currently reside, the United States. Having said that, we have to consider all the cultural, economic, and systematic differences.

To start with a common point, I may use the Wikipedia definition to one of the critical aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic: the SD, since it will be my paper’s core thought.

According to Wikipedia, SD can be defined as “is a set of non-pharmaceutical interventions or measures intended to prevent the spread of a contagious disease by maintaining a physical distance between people and reducing the number of times people come into close contact with each other.”

In the same direction, The American Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have described SD as “a set of “methods for reducing frequency and closeness of contact between people to decrease the risk of transmission of disease”. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the CDC defined SD as “remaining out of congregate settings, avoiding mass gatherings, and maintaining distance (approximately six feet or two meters) from others when possible”.

Accordingly, “SD, combined with the use of face masks, good respiratory hygiene, and handwashing, is considered the most feasible way to reduce or delay a pandemic”. Complementary to this, we have to raise an important question: Does culture matters when it comes to SD applications?

Roy (2020) reported that an increasing number of studies are being conducted and published to bridge cultural variables and generalized trust. The former example is altruistic beliefs, and the latter is related to national performance during the crisis. Building on these studies, we examine the role of national cultural values in the society’s adherence to SD measures and their effect on COVID-19 infection rates.”

As a person who has strong connections with two different cultures, it was apparent that there are considerable differences in each layer of the five culture layers. In light of this, this paper is limited to the behavioral layer with a clear understanding of the other four layers’ importance.

As an example of the cultural differences, in some cultures, it can be seen that to show your respect or to show your love to someone, you must touch the other person either by kissing the person’s cheek, hugging, or shaking hands. Some cultures believe (or assume) that when someone keeps her/his distance from the other party, that means she/he is neglecting, underestimating, or disrespecting that person. In the culture that I come from, we mainly describe people who maintain distance as arrogant or rude.

How SD Impacted and Still Impacting Our Social Lives?

Before discussing the possible impacts of SD on our social lives, we have to be sure to use the correct terms. Scott Geller in Blanchard (2020) suggested that “the term “SD” is inappropriate since the word “social” reflects an interpersonal connection or companionship a person experiences with one or more individuals. On the other hand, Physical Distancing would be more appropriate.”.

Diving to the bottom rock fundamentals of this issue, Nicholas Christakis in Miller (2020) highlighted that for the world to be able to control the spread of the pandemic, some impulses for connections need to be suppressed. Such evolutionary instincts include; meeting friends, gatherings, and touching.

Despite that, I felt this issue first hand when I travelled recently to my country. Avoiding affection through touching each other to express our love and using our language has impacted people’s mode, considerations, and the core of their traditions.

Also, I noticed that people have stopped giving help to people who need physical support because of the pandemic, which is not something that we usually do. This used to be considered a must or something that should be morally done.

Blanchard (2020) elaborated on the social nature of humankind. Humans rely on each other for goods and services, including; food, shelter, and clothing. Additionally, we lean on each other emotionally for compassion, understanding, friendship, and love.

While this is the case, Holt-Lunstad (2020) reported that the pandemic has highlighted for us the urgency in controlling the spread of COVID-19. It also emphasized the importance of our social contact and its relevance to every sphere of our lives, including; employment, education, entertainment, travel, transportation, and recreation. Furthermore, it highlighted the underlying weaknesses of our current social “support systems” for the elderly, students, families, laborer, and vulnerable populations”.

Similarly, I can foresee that the concentration and sometimes the exaggeration on hygiene issues, the terror of large gatherings, and sitting next to others may never give our kind the trust to be normal again and overcome these emergent behaviors. Holt-Lunstad (2020) elaborated that it became a struggle to balance survival and life quality by doing so. By sacrificing social connections, humans indeed jeopardies their lives quality.

Chris Segrin has presented the other face of this issue in Miller (2020). The behavioral scientist at the University of Arizona noted that people are different when it comes to their ability to handle social isolation and the relevant stress since humans are strongly related to cultural reasons. Indeed, humans have solid social ties and are considered big-sized families. The scientist justified his opinion by pointing at the mental health variation between people in society, such as having social anxiety, depression, loneliness, substance abuse. Such conditions are bound to make individuals vulnerable.

This opinion supports my hypothesis that SD regulations and applications have created a wide gap in the feeling and emotional side of the relations between family members and social ties.

Furthermore, Sikali (2020) addressed some fundamental issues in this regard by connecting the SD to social rejection, absence of human character, individualism, fear of others, and the loss of a sense of community. The author claimed that SD affects learning and growth negatively and prevents socializing.

Impacts of SD on Business Aspects:

It is a painful trade-off.

Koren and Pető (2020) highlighted that SD interventions could be a double-edged sword as they can be effective to stop the spread of pandemic but also considered painful trade-off and detrimental for the economy, primarily for businesses that depend mainly on customers’ in-person interaction, which renders them vulnerable to failure.

Complementary to the previous perspective, and to see clearly the Dynamic situation in the United States, Leibovici et al. (2020) supported this view by asserting that business will be affected differently. To elaborate, industries that rely intensively on human contact will be affected much more than online businesses.

At this point, I derive from my own experience and lessons learned from my own business in Saudi Arabia. The number of people in family and business gatherings has drastically reduced. SD has only allowed limited amounts of people to be in an area at once. Likewise, employment interviews have been limited, and it becomes more challenging for the HR entities to interview, evaluate, and read candidates’ body language. This, in turn, hinders the ability of business owners to build up judgment about candidates and make an ideal choice.

Also, it can be seen that one of the most important effects that made a significant change in the business life is teamwork spirit, now, not like any time before, teamwork became something from the past for many industries because they cannot collaborate physically to create the aura required for achievement. On the contrary, tenseness, nervousness, and annoyance are how many workers described their experience working efficiently with masks, especially on extended hours. Either in the classroom or at work, the lack of spirit and interaction tremendously impacted productivity.

Impacts of SD on Behavioural Aspects during the Education Process:

Nambiar (2020) argued that the SD did not only affect parents, teachers, and students, but it also put a strain and took its toll on education experts and analysts. Nambiar highlighted the significant shift in the education process in the sense that it does not depend on chalk and talk nowadays; instead, it expanded the tools to cover “Zoom webinars, pre-recorded learning videos, master classes, and children’s entertainment.” Nambiar added that a highly qualified teacher is not necessarily highly-qualified as a virtual educator because they are simply untrained to conduct teaching in virtual settings. Not only that, but they cannot also adapt to the virtual community building, which is an essential block in remote learning environments.

I may add from my personal experience that teachers do not teach as effectively as when students were in front of them, and online school is a struggle for them. Some teachers work well with teaching with technology, and others prefer it traditional. Having said that, it is worth mentioning that the skillset is simply not transferable.”.

Likewise, many mothers in the United States and Saudi Arabia keep complaining that being in front of a screen for hours on end makes their kids so much less motivated and drains their energy out. Focusing is also an issue; with a computer, you have access to everything, so it becomes tempting not to pursue classes instead to do anything else. In most cases, laziness is so much more common; when they are just sitting in their beds all day, barely feeling awake, staring into a screen.

The struggle that parents, students, and educators face and the distance learning phenomenon has become apparent. Thus, more support will be required for students to navigate at-home education in the future. Similarly, families will need help in an at-home education set.

As a result of the quarantine and SD requirements, not only has the school wholly changed when it switched to virtual, there have been many side effects. Such effects, including, students became less interested in activities and more isolated because of the long online classes and virtual education. Moreover, most students, especially college students, are cheating on many assignments and quizzes because of accessible technology access.

(Haughy, 2020) added that such a shift in the education process put students in isolation from their friends, teachers, and everything they enjoy, which, in turn, will affect the way they develop and grow.

On the other hand, communication Professor Jeremy Bailenson in Ramachandaran (2021) highlighted that Zooming became the era’s language and is used to replace conferences.

Ramachandaran (2021) highlighted in much current literature that “Zoom Fatigue” is a new concept that appeared during the pandemic. The author explained why video chat could cause fatigue to students, including; the unnatural size of faces and excessive eye contact, constantly watching oneself in real-time video, mobility reduction by staying in the same spot for a long time, difficulty to send and receive signals which increase the cognitive load.

To this end, this paper concluded that to reduce the infection rates of COVID-19 pandemics, the role of national cultural values in the society’s adherence to SD should be measured. Also, the pandemic has definitely changed every individual’s culture through the SD and its direct effect on the behavior layer.

References

Blanchard, D. (2020). The Unintended Consequences of Social Distancing, Staying at home isn’t always the safest place to be.
CDC, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2021). CDC is responding to the Coronavirus outbreak. Retrieved from: https://www.cdc.gov/.
Holt-Lunstad, J. (2020). The Double Pandemic of Social Isolation And COVID-19: Cross-Sector Policy Must Address Both. Health Affairs Blog. Retrieved from: https://www.healthaffairs.org/

https://www.ehstoday.com/covid19/article/21140779/the-unintended-consequences-of-social-distancing

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7461541/

Hughey, D. (2020). Lessons Learned, Social Distancing May Impact Student Development. CBS-19. Retrieved from: https://www.cbs19.tv/article/news/education/eyes-on-education/lessons-learned-social-distance-may-impact-student-development/501-417bc672-cc8a-4702-96e5-3d5b87c921ae
Leibovici, F, Santacreu, A.M. and Famiglietti, M. (2020). How the Impact of Social Distancing Ripples through the Economy. Retrieved from: https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2020/april/impact-social-distancing-ripples-economy
Miklós, K. & Pető, R. (2020), Business disruptions from social distancing. Plos One. Retrieved from: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0239113
Koren M, Pető R (2020) Business disruptions from social distancing. PLOS ONE 15(9). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0239113.
Miller, G.(2020). Social Distancing Prevents Infections, but it Can Have Unintended Consequences. Science. Retrieved from: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/03/we-are-social-species-how-will-social-distancing-affect-us
Nambiar, P. (2020). Looking Ahead: The Future Implications of Social Distancing on Education. GoGuardian Blog. Retrieved from: https://www.goguardian.com/blog/technology/the-future-implications-of-social-distancing-on-education/
Ramachandran, V. (2021). Stanford Researchers Identify Four Causes for ‘Zoom Fatigue’ and Their Simple Fixes. Stanford. Retrieved from: https://news.stanford.edu/2021/02/23/four-causes-zoom-fatigue-solutions/
Roy, A. (2020). COVID-19: The Role of Culture in Social Distancing and Infection Rate. Berkeley Economic Review. Retrieved from: https://econreview.berkeley.edu/covid-19-the-role-of-culture-in-social-distancing-and-infection-rate/
Sikali, K. (2020). The dangers of social distancing: How COVID‐19 can reshape our social experience
Wikipedia, (2021), Social Distancing. Retrieved from: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_distancing

Changed on Behavior Culture during COVID-19 Pandemic

Leave a Reply Cancel reply