Is not going out the ‘new normal’?

The Covid-19 lockdowns fundamentally changed the way we lived. Many people started working from home; we saw friends and family less; at times, outdoor activity was limited altogether. Many of these behaviours were cited as contributors to low mood and poor mental health. Yet, a new study suggests, we may still be engaging in them to a larger extent than pre-Covid.

To understand the ongoing effect of Covid-19 on our daily lives, a U.S-based team looked at the way Americans chose to spend their time: before the pandemic, during its peak, and since. They find that even after restrictions were lifted, people spent much less time doing activities outside – a lasting consequence of the pandemic.

Data was gathered from 34,018 participants in the American Time Use Survey, which has been looking at the way Americans spend their time since 2003. The team was specifically interested in 12 "out of home" activities like shopping, work, or healthcare, and 16 "in-home" activities like sleep, browsing the internet, or exercise. They also looked at time spent travelling every day.

The team looked at several periods to compare activity levels. Firstly, the unsurprising results: from 2019 to 2021, when Covid-19 restrictions were at their most strict, out of home time decreased by around an hour a day. Yet, in the post-acute pandemic period starting in 2022, this didn't increase much at all. In fact, time spent out of the house only increased by 11 minutes between 2021 and 2022 — meaning, overall, time spent out of the house decreased by 16% between pre- and post-pandemic years. In the same period, there was a similar decrease of 17% in time spent travelling.  

Patterns of activity in and out of the house also changed: in fact, 17 out of the 28 activities showed significant changes between 2019 and 2023. Sleep increased, on average, by 16 minutes per day. Out of home shopping, predictably, fell during the pandemic but stayed below pre-pandemic levels by 2023. In fact, most 'discretionary' activities like socialising or eating out saw reductions (though more necessary tasks, like education or caregiving, remained fairly stable).

Again, this shows how severely the pandemic has affected our way of life. Even while many found it hard to spend so much time at home during the pandemic, it seems to have shifted our patterns of behaviour and daily routines: we're sleeping more, going out less, and spending less time on 'non-essential' activities like eating out.

How much of this is related strictly to the pandemic itself, however, is still up for debate. As the authors note, an existing trend towards staying home existed pre-Covid, with the advent of the pandemic seemingly accelerating that trend. In the UK, for example, the cost-of-living crisis and the lasting effects of previous financial crises have hit many people's disposable income hard; this may be a bigger contributing factor to a reduction in eating out or socialising than pandemic-influenced changes in social norms.

The other gap in the study is more qualitative: how people actually feel about the way their lives have changed over the last few years. The pandemic may have refocused people on the things they find meaningful, reshaping their lives in positive ways. On the other hand, shifts to working patterns, sleep, and socialising may be affecting people's wellbeing in a negative way. Future research could explore the nuances of such changes.

The team's acknowledgement that there is no real consensus on when the pandemic 'ended' is also an interesting part of the study. The results seem to back this up, too. Even though lockdowns have lifted and the most serious effects of the pandemic have abated, Covid-19 still continues to impact our lives every day.

Read the paper in full:
Morris, E. A., Speroni, S., & Taylor, B. D. (2024). Going Nowhere Faster: Did the Covid-19 Pandemic Accelerate the Trend Toward Staying Home? Journal of the American Planning Association, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/01944363.2024.2385327

Want the latest in psychological research, straight to your inbox?
Sign up to Research Digest's free weekly newsletter.