Department of Sociology, New York University, New York, NY, USA.
Social Research and Public Policy, New York University-Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, UAE.
Sci Adv. 2023 Dec 22;9(51):eadi1540. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.adi1540. Epub 2023 Dec 20.
The COVID-19 pandemic, with millions of Americans compelled to stay home and work remotely, presented an opportunity to explore the dynamics of social relationships in a predominantly remote world. Using the 1972-2022 General Social Surveys, we found that the pandemic significantly disrupted the patterns of social gatherings with family, friends, and neighbors but only momentarily. Drawing from the nationwide ego-network surveys of 41,033 Americans from 2020 to 2022, we found that the size and composition of core networks remained stable, although political homophily increased among nonkin relationships compared to previous surveys between 1985 and 2016. Critically, heightened remote communication during the initial phase of the pandemic was associated with increased interaction with the same partisans, although political homophily decreased during the later phase of the pandemic when in-person contacts increased. These results underscore the crucial role of social institutions and social gatherings in promoting spontaneous encounters with diverse political backgrounds.
新冠疫情期间，数以百万计的美国人被迫居家并远程办公，这为我们提供了一个探索在主要以远程为主的世界中社会关系动态的机会。我们使用了 1972 年至 2022 年的综合社会调查（General Social Surveys）数据，发现疫情显著打乱了与家人、朋友和邻居聚会的模式，但只是暂时的。从 2020 年至 2022 年对 41033 名美国人进行的全国性自我网络调查中，我们发现，核心网络的规模和组成保持稳定，尽管与 1985 年至 2016 年的先前调查相比，非亲属关系中的政治同质性增加了。关键的是，疫情初期远程交流的增加与与同一党派人士的互动增加有关，尽管在疫情后期当面对面接触增加时，政治同质性下降了。这些结果强调了社会机构和社交聚会在促进与不同政治背景的人自然相遇方面的重要作用。
