Old New World, or How COVID-19 Has Transformed Our Everyday Life

Abstract

By now, the changes caused by the COVID-19 pandemic became an integral part of our everyday life. The realities of the «new» world had influence on all spheres of human activity, including time and space management, because studies, work, and leisure that before had been the prerogative of educational and work areas and public spaces, invaded our homes. This article studies the changes in the daily practices of student youth during various periods of the COVID-19 pandemic and analyzes the attitude of students to the changes that have taken place through the prism of their experience.

The empirical base of the study consisted of a series of semi-formalized interviews. The informants were sampled based on the following criteria-based filters: the informant is a full-time student of higher education aged 18 years or older. The informants represented different higher educational institutions of the Russian Federation. The study implied panel design and supposed participation of the same informants in a series of interviews. Field work was carried out in the spring in 2020 and 2021.

The authors show that that the problems of adapting to social conditions that changed during the pandemic were multifactorial. They became less pressing as the pandemic unfolded and students adjusted to the changes. The assessments and changes in the content of these problems are presented regarding the possibility and necessity of returning to the “old” lifestyle together with the pros and cons of the transformations that have taken place. In the course of the analysis, the authors paid special attention to the issues of inclusion/exclusion, in particular, concerning a certain forced modification of communication formats, being in a situation of social vacuum and getting out of it, as well as changes in the psycho-emotional state in general. Besides, the informants specified the strengths and weaknesses of digital interaction in the context of educational process and brought out an ambivalent attitude to full-time intramural and online education.