The pandemic experience survey II: A second corpus of subjective reports of life under social restrictions during COVID-19 in the UK, Japan, and Mexico

Abstract

BackgroundIn August 2021, Froese et al. published survey data collected from 2,543 respondents on their subjective experiences living under imposed social distancing measures during COVID-19 (1). The questionnaire was issued to respondents in the UK, Japan, and Mexico. By combining the authors' expertise in phenomenological philosophy, phenomenological psychopathology, and enactive cognitive science, the questions were carefully phrased to prompt reports that would be useful to phenomenological investigation and theorizing (2-4). These questions reflected the various author's research interests (e.g., technology, grief, time).Between April 7th and July 31st, 2021, a second questionnaire with the same question set was issued to respondents of the original who had agreed to do a follow-up. This was intended to capture subjective reports of life under social distancing measures a year after the initial survey. By this time-depending on their country of residence and health status-respondents had potentially lived with repeated and prolonged lockdowns and a variety of other restrictions on their social lives.When taken together, Survey I and Survey II provide a cross-cultural and longitudinal dataset that allows for analysis of longer-term impacts of imposed social distancing measures on people's experiences. For researchers working in diverse disciplines, this dataset offers a rich resource that reflects people's reactions to the imposition of different social restrictions in different countries and over different time periods.

Meaninglessness and monotony in pandemic boredom

“…11 My analysis of pandemic boredom draws on the initial data set which was collected relatively early on in the pandemic. From April to July 2021 the team re-interviewed a large proportion of the participants using the same questions, the responses from which have recently been made publicly available (James et al, 2022). Whilst it is beyond the scope of this article, it would be useful to compare and contrast the experiences of pandemic boredom across these two data sets.…”

From tech to tact: emotion dysregulation in online communication during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…As previously mentioned, during the COVID-19 pandemic many researchers leveraged the natural experiments that were underway. One international team of researchers that included the authors of this paper was interested in the ways in which social restrictions impacted various features of people’s lived experience (Froese et al, 2021 ; James et al, 2022 ). They issued detailed questionnaires that collected subjective reports from nearly two thousand participants.…”

“…C1 includes responses of a total of 1,801 participants, of which 543 participants responded a second time. The questionnaire and two corpora are publicly available, see Froese et al ( 2021 ) and James et al ( 2022 ) for full details and links to sources.…”

“…This provided ample opportunities for unique empirical inquiries of all sorts, as many ‘natural experiments’ were underway the world over that allowed for huge amounts of data collection. One such effort, explicated in more detail below and relied upon throughout this paper, was by Froese et al ( 2021 ) and James et al ( 2022 ). As we will see, the subjective reports collected in these corpora provide rich insights into the ways in which ICTs are sources of emotional dysregulation.…”

“…Consider the following subjective report about online communication technologies during the pandemic. James et al ( 2022 ) asked the question (Q48) Have you been connecting with others on-line more often than you did before? If so, what has your experience of using online technologies been like?…”