Gabbiadini Alessandro, Baldissarri Cristina, Durante Federica, Valtorta Roberta Rosa, De Rosa Maria, Gallucci Marcello
University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Psychology - Mind and Behavior Technological Center, Milan, Italy.
University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Psychology, Milan, Italy.
Front Psychol. 2020 Oct 21;11:554678. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.554678. eCollection 2020.
The ongoing pandemic of COVID-19 has forced governments to impose a lockdown, and many people have suddenly found themselves having to reduce their social relations drastically. Given the exceptional nature of similar situations, only a few studies have investigated the negative psychological effects of forced social isolation and how they can be mitigated in a real context. In the present study, we investigated whether the amount of digital communication technology use for virtual meetings (i.e., voice and video calls, online board games and multiplayer video games, or watching movies in party mode) during the lockdown promoted the perception of social support, which in itself mitigated the psychological effects of the lockdown in Italy. Data were collected in March 2020 ( = 465), during the lockdown imposed to reduce the COVID-19 spread. The results indicated that the amount of digital technology use reduced feelings of loneliness, anger/irritability, and boredom and increased belongingness the perception of social support. The present study supported the positive role of digital technologies in maintaining meaningful social relationships even during an extreme situation such as a lockdown. Implications such as the need to reduce the digital divide and possible consequences of the ongoing pandemic are discussed.
持续的新冠疫情迫使各国政府实施封锁措施，许多人突然发现自己不得不大幅减少社交活动。鉴于类似情况的特殊性，仅有少数研究调查了强制社交隔离带来的负面心理影响以及如何在实际情况下减轻这些影响。在本研究中，我们调查了在封锁期间用于虚拟会议的数字通信技术使用量（即语音和视频通话、在线棋盘游戏和多人视频游戏，或在聚会模式下观看电影）是否能促进社会支持感，而这种社会支持感本身又减轻了意大利封锁措施带来的心理影响。数据于2020年3月收集（n = 465），当时正值为减少新冠病毒传播而实施的封锁期间。结果表明，数字技术的使用量减少了孤独感、愤怒/易怒情绪和无聊感，并增强了归属感——即社会支持感。本研究支持了数字技术在即使处于封锁等极端情况下仍能维持有意义社交关系方面的积极作用。文中还讨论了诸如缩小数字鸿沟的必要性以及当前疫情可能带来的后果等问题。
