Young People Take the Pandemic More Seriously
Despite the near-total unfreezing of the economy and everyday life after the pandemic, young people approach the topic of COVID-19 with greater caution than older people. More often than other age groups, they want to limit visits to large stores due to the risk of infection, and they more often believe that the process of unfreezing the economy is proceeding too quickly – according to research by ARC Rynek i Opinia.
Research by ARC Rynek i Opinia shows that representatives of the youngest age group (18-24 years old) take the topic of the pandemic more seriously than people from the older age group, even though – according to medical reports – they are not in the main risk group, and there are few reports of a young person dying as a result of the coronavirus. Along with the first reports of the pandemic in Poland, they more often than other age groups indicated that the topic of COVID was being treated insufficiently seriously (49% average versus 58% young people).
Young People More Cautious in Stores
As time passed, the attitude of young people did not change. Once shopping malls were reopened, 19% of Poles declared they would limit visits to this type of facility due to the risk of infection. However, in this case there is a very large difference between the 18-24 age group and the 25-34 age group. In the case of the former, 25% of people declare that they will go to large stores less often because they fear infection; in the latter, this percentage drops by half – to 13%.
The Pace of Unfreezing the Economy
There is also a visible difference in the perception of the pace of unfreezing the economy – 31% of people from the youngest age group believe that it is too fast – that is 8 percentage points more than in the next group (25-34 years old), where this percentage is 26%.
Social Isolation of Young People
In the first phase of isolation, at the end of March, young people aged 16-24 more often than older people indicated a sense of social isolation. While on average 16% of people indicated that they strongly felt social isolation, in the youngest group of respondents this percentage was 26%.
Awareness and New Habits
Young People and the Pandemic: Why More Cautious Than Older People
Young people also had a high awareness from the beginning of how to behave in the case of coronavirus symptoms – 17% of them believed that with any symptoms indicating possible infection, one should immediately consult a doctor, while the results for society as a whole were almost half as low and amounted to 10%. Among young people, more people indicated a sense of unhappiness accompanying isolation (5%), while for all respondents this percentage was only 1%.
Also among people who now order food delivery more often, the largest group consists of people from the youngest age group (44% versus 34% overall). This means that young people do not necessarily want to give up their habits, but out of fear of infection, they choose safer options.
The coronavirus pandemic affected young people in a particular way. Schools and universities were closed, and from one day to the next young people were deprived of contact with their peers and the opportunity to pursue their hobbies in extracurricular activities or, in the case of students, additional work. From one day to the next they had to switch to remote learning, which, at least in the initial stage, fell short of ideal. Why are young people more filled with fears than older people? We can identify three reasons. The first is the lack of earlier experience with situations of threat. While older people may remember martial law, communism, the Chernobyl disaster, or even the economic crisis 12 years ago, people from the youngest age group have no such experiences. Therefore, the pandemic, which affects the whole world and impacts the lives of billions of people, appears to them as a much greater threat than it actually is. The second reason is concern for their own health. It is young people who introduce the fashion for vegetarianism or veganism and emphasize the need to care for the natural environment. Therefore, even if they are not in the main risk group, they perceive it as a threat to their health. It is worth noting that in public spaces, people wearing masks, also outside enclosed places, are often precisely young people. Perhaps we are witnessing a social change consisting of greater adaptation of society to the introduced rules out of concern for the common good. While our nation has always had a reputation for fighting the system, which has its justified historical basis, perhaps at a time when there is no need to fight for anything, an attitude of adapting to the prevailing rules emerges, since after all they were introduced for some purpose. And this is certainly a positive change from the point of view of civic discipline – comments Łukasz Mazurkiewicz, President of the Management Board of ARC Rynek i Opinia.
Information about the research
The results come from research conducted by ARC Rynek i Opinia between the second half of March 2020 and the first half of June 2020. For all studies, the sample was a minimum of N=1000 and was representative with regard to gender, age, education, region of residence, and size of locality. All studies were conducted using the CAWI method on the ePanel.pl panel.
Summary
Research by ARC Rynek i Opinia shows that it is the youngest adults (18-24 years old) who take the COVID-19 pandemic most seriously. As many as 25% of them limit visits to shopping malls, and 31% believe that unfreezing the economy is too fast. Young people also much more often than older people declared a sense of social isolation (26% vs 16% on average).
Interestingly, it is young people (44%) who most readily order food delivery, which indicates that they are not giving up their habits, but choosing safer options. Expert Łukasz Mazurkiewicz explains their attitude by a lack of experience with crises and concern for health and the common good.
