I’d certainly prefer that it never happened, but I feel like the COVID era will eventually be a fascinating sociological case study. Now that there is so much optimism about the vaccines, it seems like most people in the world will have had their lives forcibly altered for only a very defined period of time. At the very least, this period has reduced a good degree of social interaction for most. For some, the difference has been significant. I consider myself in this class. Being single, and commuting to Manhattan from the suburbs to an office building, I spoke to dozens of people face-to-face every day. Also, much of my social life revolved around being out of the house at least 12 hours a day, with a large overlap between work and play. Now, I can go days without speaking to anyone face-to-face. Sure, I’m on video calls all day long for work, on FaceTime with my parents and kids, etc., but these are obviously not the same as real life. For those like me, and certainly also for a multitude of other lifestyles, there will be an option to go back to “normal”.
But how many will choose that option? Will there be large chunks of the population that will just say “Nah, I’m good”? With all of the technology implemented over the past couple of decades, it’s possible to live as if we’re in the COVID era forever. If I remember correctly, the humans in Wall-E were perfectly happy sitting in souped-up Lazyboys throughout their lives. There has always been fear that humanity will become like them, but has COVID accelerated this eventuality?
As for me, I’m looking forward to returning to normal. But I can’t say that I’m unhappy. I live in a nice big house, have a chance to at least meet close friends and family occasionally (although the outdoor dining is going to be tough in the winter), and have access to a plethora of entertainment. If, God forbid!, something happens where I have to live this way forever, I think I’d be able to manage. Not sure though, because the knowledge that a vaccine is close changes the perspective, and it would be heart-breaking if it didn’t work out for some reason.
Well, that was just one long example of the topic, but this was meant to be a general question. What are some of the other potential long-term or permanent effects of COVID?
I think it’s going to exacerbate existing inequalities. Both the disease itself, and the knock-on effects like unemployment and kids falling behind in school, have been a lot harder on communities that were already low-income.
Beyond that, I don’t know, but while there may be some people who actually prefer the socially-distanced lifestyle, online work and education, etc., I think there’s more likely to be a huge backlash against these things. Like, sitting on the couch faffing around on the Internet seemed like a perfectly OK way to spend a Saturday back in January, but now that it feels like I’ve done nothing else for the last nine months, I’ve had ENOUGH of it for a lifetime – and I am a fortysomething introvert. What I hear from my students (college-aged) is that they are NOT happy, they don’t like online classes or find online socialization an adequate substitute for the real thing, and they also seem to have a ton of angst about technology causing us to lose touch with our humanity. (My final paper assignment in Brit Lit II is, essentially, "pick anything we’ve read this semester and make the case for why people should be reading it today, in fall / spring of 20__. Usually, I get a variety of papers on a whole bunch of different texts. This semester? Literally half the class wrote about the same work: The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster.) So it wouldn’t surprise me if we end up entering a period when people suddenly value real-world experience and interaction more than they did before. Technology is cool until it’s forced upon you.
I have two teenagers (14 & 17), so I’m interested in what life will look like for them when this is done. By the time my oldest starts college next fall, it will have been a year and a half since he entered a real classroom. All of those junior/senior events have been skipped - prom, homecoming, football games, parties, dating, etc. He does have a job and plays soccer for his school (even though they’re learning virtually, athletics is still happening), so he’s had some face-to-face interaction. My youngest has seen people outside of our immediate family maybe a handful of times since March - no job, all his dance classes have been held on Zoom. This time of their life is so integral to forming peer relationships and figuring out who they are outside of their family, that I wonder if this will stunt them somehow, or cause them to go a little crazy once they’re free to interact normally. They have socialized with their friends online, but I don’t think it has been any more or different interactions than they had prior to this.
Oddly (to me), they haven’t seemed at all bothered by any of this. They love being able to roll out of bed and start school. When I told my older son that the vaccine may make him feel a little bad for a day or two, he said, “Well, at least we’ll have an excuse to stay home and do nothing for a few days.” Maybe this has all become normal to them and they’ll always tend toward hibernating.