SOCIETY AND COVID-19: TRENDS AND CHALLENGES
Abstract
Due to its scope and length, the Covid-19 pandemic continues to affect numerous domains in everyone’s lives and to change the fabric of society. Societal changes can be driven by accumulated changes on the personal level, such as increased workload, stress, loneliness, and emotional burnout. These can lead to collective trauma and increased numbers of people with mental health problems, but the pandemic is also changing processes that go beyond the individual (e.g. changes in the economy, the rising importance of the internet). In this article, I present different challenges we, as a society, are facing during the pandemic and will continue to face in the future. Based on various empirical findings and theoretical contributions, I highlight collective mental health, changes in social relationships and behaviours, means of obtaining information, and excessive polarization, and present how distance education and work can contribute to change at the societal level. Although most of the changes discussed represent existing trends that have been exacerbated by the outbreak of Covid-19, the post-Covid society brings new challenges that require the involvement of psychologists and other mental health professionals.
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