5 ms·

It's interesting because psychologically it really has an effect. I find myself feeling uncomfortable at how close people are when watching Netflix shows. My c

It's interesting because psychologically it really has an effect. I find myself feeling uncomfortable at how close people are when watching Netflix shows. My conscious mind knows it's nothing, but I had to stop and think why I was feeling uncomfortable at the lack of "personal space". I paused to ask my wife about it and she felt the same. We've got this new mental norm and intentional or not, what we see and witness is affecting us. I'm in London and personal space has rarely been something you worry about here, crowded tubes with a shorter persons nose in my arm pit was not unusual before the pandemic. These days just seeing people at less than arms length apart is enough to make me uncomfortable enough to need to wonder why. I have no doubt plenty of media sensationalise but I'm not "pro" enough of a photographer to determine if this is intentional or if photographers in the media are just ignorant of the issue.

kzrdude 6y ago
It's going to be so interesting when this is over, all the strange habits we will have made and will have a hard time to let go of. It also gives me pause to think that some people will never recover (bordering on mental illness), some people will forever be afraid of physical closeness to others after going through this.
- Mediterraneo10 6y ago
  I don't think the psychological effect will last very long among most of the population, based on two observations. One is that whenever lockdowns have been lifted in Europe, restaurants and pubs swiftly went back to being packed – and even now some restaurants in e.g. Italy and Poland are defying the restrictions and reopening, and still getting queues of people waiting to enter. And not only does concern among younger generations about the virus vary widely, but many touristic locales that attract crowds of elderly people, the predominant risk group for COVID, were just as crowded in summer 2020 as any other year, with little regard for distancing.
  - noneeeed 6y ago
    I've no idea why you were being downvoted, I think that there will be some lingering habits that may take a while to dissipate, but I think a lot of people are depesperate to get back to something resembling normality. Frankly as soon as it's genuinly safe to do so (who knows when that will be) I'll be having people round and visiting people all the time.
    - ghaff 6y ago
      There's some subset of people who think that any talk of going back to normal (even as a future thing) is premature, actively dangerous, and probably associated with right-wing politics.
- alias_neo 6y ago
  Absolutely, I wonder when/if not wearing masks will be totally normal again. How will it affect the next generation? My daughter isn't much older than this pandemic, and she's been used to seeing people with face masks on her whole life; one of her first words is "mask". She's had to struggle her way through her first year not being able to use all of the usual visual cues we are used to seeing in peoples faces, but has done so without a hiccup that I can see, it's just normal to her.
  - codezero 6y ago
    If anything I'm hoping this event normalized wearing masks to help reduce seasonal flus.
ehnto 6y ago
I live in a part of the world that has stamped out the virus, and it has taken a while to fade the anxieties surrounding crowds and public amenities and such that I built up during the middle of it. It's a combination of so many things, but I have somewhat crested the hill and feel comfortable in public spaces again. It's obviously not over yet, we're not inoculated and it could get re-introduced. But I can be pretty confident with the situation right now. The biggest issue is just the factor of the unknown. It was never clear what's right, what's overreacting, what's underreacting, am I doing too much am I doing too little? Someone sniffs down the hall and your imagination goes wild... But we know so much more about it, and what protections are in place, that a lot of that anxiety of the unknown is gone. I have personally learned about myself, what my comfortable levels of risk are, and I have seen how my country responds to outbreaks and it has filled me with great confidence. To everyone still amidst the pandemic, know that you're carrying some extra cognitive load even if you're being totally reasonable about everything. So don't feel bad if you're feeling worn out, and I hope we'll all be on the end of it soon enough.
- bonoboTP 6y ago
  If it goes on for another year or two (pls don't kill the messenger, remember last Feb-March and how we just had to flatten the curve for some weeks or a month, vaccines will take way longer than the media pushes) it will also significantly impact small children and their assessment of how the world works, social norms, dangers of strangers, masks covering expressive faces, less contact to extended family etc.
  - nitrogen 6y ago
    I'll be curious to see how the effect on kids plays out. Are there kids who are better off with distance learning because it got them away from schoolyard bullies? Will most kids now be more understanding of other kids who were isolates before, knowing now what isolation feels like? How will this affect the fads of the 2030s as these kids come of age?
    - danbolt 6y ago
ghaff 6y ago
Any serious photographer understands quite well how to use photographs to sell a particular story. And I have no doubt that more than one photographer has been sent out by an editor with instructions to shoot some photos of people crowding together. It's also true that if a photographer is out to get photos of people, they're not going to shoot a picture of an empty street.

kzrdude 6y ago

It's going to be so interesting when this is over, all the strange habits we will have made and will have a hard time to let go of. It also gives me pause to think that some people will never recover (bordering on mental illness), some people will forever be afraid of physical closeness to others after going through this.

Mediterraneo10 6y ago
I don't think the psychological effect will last very long among most of the population, based on two observations. One is that whenever lockdowns have been lifted in Europe, restaurants and pubs swiftly went back to being packed – and even now some restaurants in e.g. Italy and Poland are defying the restrictions and reopening, and still getting queues of people waiting to enter. And not only does concern among younger generations about the virus vary widely, but many touristic locales that attract crowds of elderly people, the predominant risk group for COVID, were just as crowded in summer 2020 as any other year, with little regard for distancing.
- noneeeed 6y ago
  I've no idea why you were being downvoted, I think that there will be some lingering habits that may take a while to dissipate, but I think a lot of people are depesperate to get back to something resembling normality. Frankly as soon as it's genuinly safe to do so (who knows when that will be) I'll be having people round and visiting people all the time.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    There's some subset of people who think that any talk of going back to normal (even as a future thing) is premature, actively dangerous, and probably associated with right-wing politics.
alias_neo 6y ago
Absolutely, I wonder when/if not wearing masks will be totally normal again. How will it affect the next generation? My daughter isn't much older than this pandemic, and she's been used to seeing people with face masks on her whole life; one of her first words is "mask". She's had to struggle her way through her first year not being able to use all of the usual visual cues we are used to seeing in peoples faces, but has done so without a hiccup that I can see, it's just normal to her.
- codezero 6y ago
  If anything I'm hoping this event normalized wearing masks to help reduce seasonal flus.

ehnto 6y ago

I live in a part of the world that has stamped out the virus, and it has taken a while to fade the anxieties surrounding crowds and public amenities and such that I built up during the middle of it. It's a combination of so many things, but I have somewhat crested the hill and feel comfortable in public spaces again. It's obviously not over yet, we're not inoculated and it could get re-introduced. But I can be pretty confident with the situation right now. The biggest issue is just the factor of the unknown. It was never clear what's right, what's overreacting, what's underreacting, am I doing too much am I doing too little? Someone sniffs down the hall and your imagination goes wild... But we know so much more about it, and what protections are in place, that a lot of that anxiety of the unknown is gone. I have personally learned about myself, what my comfortable levels of risk are, and I have seen how my country responds to outbreaks and it has filled me with great confidence. To everyone still amidst the pandemic, know that you're carrying some extra cognitive load even if you're being totally reasonable about everything. So don't feel bad if you're feeling worn out, and I hope we'll all be on the end of it soon enough.

bonoboTP 6y ago
If it goes on for another year or two (pls don't kill the messenger, remember last Feb-March and how we just had to flatten the curve for some weeks or a month, vaccines will take way longer than the media pushes) it will also significantly impact small children and their assessment of how the world works, social norms, dangers of strangers, masks covering expressive faces, less contact to extended family etc.
- nitrogen 6y ago
  I'll be curious to see how the effect on kids plays out. Are there kids who are better off with distance learning because it got them away from schoolyard bullies? Will most kids now be more understanding of other kids who were isolates before, knowing now what isolation feels like? How will this affect the fads of the 2030s as these kids come of age?
  - danbolt 6y ago

ghaff 6y ago

Any serious photographer understands quite well how to use photographs to sell a particular story. And I have no doubt that more than one photographer has been sent out by an editor with instructions to shoot some photos of people crowding together. It's also true that if a photographer is out to get photos of people, they're not going to shoot a picture of an empty street.