Friendship and Socialization in the Days of the Covid-19 Pandemic Crisis Research Analysis and Suggestions

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic, already completing almost two years of its irreversible course of action, has exerted and still exerts significant pressures on the social and economic systems of countries worldwide as well as on human relations. Human friendship and socialization, as key factors of human coexistence and cooperation within a social group, have been hit hard by the strict imposition of measures of distancing and social isolation in order to limit the disease and stop its unexpectedly deadly transmission. The present study focuses on exploring the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on friendship and socialization of people in the new different social contexts that have developed. In the first stage, our work attempts a review of the research and studies carried out during these two years which investigate the changes that occurred in these two dimensions of human coexistence and cooperation to highlight the way in which young adults experienced the consequences of lockdown.

Personality traits, self-efficacy, and friendship establishment: Group characteristics and network clustering of college students’ friendships

“…However, the social support was weakened during the COVID-19 pandemic (Elmer et al, 2020). As a result, the central position of individual friendship network will be affected (Diamanti et al, 2021).…”

Students and COVID-19 Pandemic: Learning Engagement and Social Dialectic of Space – Research on Students at the University of Ioannina in Greece

“…In the context of education, the most suitable option for continuing learning after the forced closure of all educational institutions was judged worldwide to be distance education. In higher education, digital platforms supported the new form of learning (e-learning) in order to continue academic courses [2], while on a social level, through networks of friends, students tried to maintain student connection and socialisation in the context of psychological empowerment, marginalising the adverse effects of the imposition of quarantine [12]. However, despite the efforts, the interruption of live teaching had negative consequences for the students.…”

“…Surveys conducted among the student population showed that the lock down and the forced confinement in the family environment, caused serious symptoms of anxiety and depressive episodes in the psyche of the young people [8,[12][13][14][15][16] affecting their learning mood and engagement as well as performance [17][18][19][20][21][22].…”