What will the post-image world be like?
The coronavirus pandemic, which began more than a year ago, has changed lives
A group of researchers, which included several experts from the University of California, Los Angeles, is confident that the crisis that the pandemic has brought will lead toto persistent psychological consequences even in those who have not been infected.
Basic predictions and ideas
- According to the study's senior author, Marty Hazelton, a female professor of psychology and communication studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, the number of planned pregnancies will decline in a world plagued by disease.As a resultthe birth rate will also fall... In addition, many couples will increasingly delay marriage.
- Single people are even now less likely to start new relationships. According to scientists, men and women who are able to be alone with themselves are likely tostay lonely.
- With children staying at home more often due to the pandemic, it is oftenwomen spend more timefor their care and training.As a result, they are less likely to have access to paid work. As a result, women have to rely more on male partners as breadwinners. In the future, this could push humanity toward socially conservative gender norms and potentially lead to a shift away from equality in relationships.
- Unlike many crises in the past, the pandemicCOVID-19 Doesn't Bring People Together... Despite some exceptions, it does notleads to an increase in kindness, empathy, or compassion. Benjamin Seitz, a PhD student in psychology at the University of California with a background in behavioral neuroscience, highlighted the worsening situation, especially in the United States.
- “During a pandemic, the human species is not in tuneto search for an understanding of the world as it really is, ”the authors write. Our tribal predisposition to groupthink leads to widespread misinformation. People tend to look for data to support their opinion. Scientists say people too often distrust health experts. This was especially noticeable during the pandemic, and the situation will continue in the post-like world.
As a result, the psychological, social and social consequences of COVID-19 will remain for a long time. And the longer the pandemic lasts, the more dramatic these changes will be.
COVID-19: A Global Social Experiment
As the number of marriages plummets,and as humans postpone reproduction in a virus-ridden world, the population of some countries will decline dramatically and fall below "reproduction rates," the authors write. The drop in fertility, in turn, will have cascading social and economic consequences. This will affect employment opportunities, limiting the ability of many countries to keep their aging populations safe and potentially causing a global economic downturn. Simply put, the population will age rapidly. However, there will be no one to take care of the elderly.
Research has shown that even before the pandemicwomen experienced more stress than men due to family and work responsibilities. They now do more domestic work related to childcare and education. In medicine and other sciences, women scientists are already publishing significantly less research than at the same time a year ago, scientists say. At the same time, men, on the contrary, demonstrate increased productivity.
In addition, the study authors foresee a shift inside of social conservatism. The pandemic may result in less tolerance for legal abortion and the rights of sexual minorities that do not correspond to traditional gender roles. Also, in times of economic inequality, women can sexualize themselves more in order to compete with each other for men.
People who meet online oftendisappointed in a personal meeting. “Does the couple have chemistry? Often times this is not the case with Zoom, ”explains Professor Hazelton. Translating relationships online will lead to over-idealization of a potential partner and subsequent disappointment.
As a result, the pandemic has already become a worldwide socialexperiment, say the authors, whose areas of expertise include psychology, neurobiology, behaviorism, evolutionary biology, medicine, social sciences and economics.
Evolutionary struggle
For the study, the authors used an evolutionaryperspective. This allowed them to highlight the strategies the virus has developed to use against humans; the strategies that mankind possesses to combat it; and the strategies that we, as a species, need to acquire.
People today are a product of social and geneticevolution in an environment that is unlike the world today. Scientists believe that it is these "evolutionary inconsistencies" that are responsible for our frequent lack of anxiety in response to the pandemic.
People increasingly value individuality andthe ability to challenge authority. This combination is not particularly effective during a pandemic, the researchers emphasize. The coronavirus exposes human weaknesses.
The study authors call the virus "insidious"because of its ability to infect us through contact with people we love and who seem healthy. “Social characteristics that define. what it means to be human make people a prime target for viral exploitation, '' says Professor Hazelton. "Policies that urge us to isolate and distance ourselves profoundly affect our families, jobs, relationships and gender roles."
All infectious agents, including viruses,are subject to evolutionary pressure to manipulate the physiology and behavior of their hosts—in this case, us—in ways that enhance their survival and transmission. According to the authors, SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19, can change human nervous tissue to change people's behavior. This may suppress feelings of nausea and perhaps even enhance our social impulses during periods of peak transmissibility before symptoms appear. People who are infected but don't feel sick are more likely to go about their normal activities and come into contact with other people they might infect.
In fact, disgust is beneficial and motivates us.avoid people with obvious signs of illness such as blood, pale skin, lesions, yellow eyes, or a runny nose. But COVID-19 infection does not always manifest itself. The authors note that family, friends, coworkers, and strangers can appear perfectly healthy and have no symptoms for days without even knowing they are infected.
It may seem counterintuitive, but forNormal brain development requires exposure to a diverse array of bacteria to help prepare young people for a range of pathogenic hazards that they may face in adulthood. However, home safety and quarantine measures have temporarily suspended social activities that would otherwise have exposed millions of teenagers to the new bacteria. As a result, according to scientists, this change can negatively affect children and adolescents, whose immune system and brain during normal times will be actively formed under the influence of various pathogens.
Understanding how SARS-CoV-2 develops and provideson us, behavioral and psychological effects that enhance its transmission, people will be able to better deal with it so that it becomes less dangerous and deadly, the authors of the study conclude.
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