Study shows Covid led to a decline in outdoor activities

New Delhi, Oct 31 (IANS) A study of 34,000 Americans, published on Thursday, showed that Covid-19 has led to a decline in outdoor activities.

The study noted that people are spending nearly an hour less a day doing activities outside the home -- a behaviour that researchers say is a lasting consequence of the pandemic.

The team from Clemson University and University of California Los Angeles in the US reveals an overall drop since 2019 of about 51 minutes in the daily time spent on out-of-home activities. They even found an almost 12-minute reduction in time spent on daily travel, such as driving or taking public transportation.

In a paper published in the peer-reviewed Journal of the American Planning Association, the team documented a trend toward less and less out-of-home time stretching back to at least 2003.

However, Covid and its aftermath led to a dramatic shift into the home or “going nowhere fast," which can have significant psychological, societal, and economic consequences, said the researchers.

“In a world where cities cannot rely on captive office workers and must work to attract residents, workers, and customers, local officials might seek to invest more heavily in their remaining strengths,” said lead author Eric A. Morris, Professor of City and Regional Planning at Clemson University.

“These include opportunities for recreation, entertainment, culture, the arts, and more. Central cities might shift toward becoming centres of consumption more than production,” Morris said.

More cocooning in the home might also lead to social isolation, they said, while blaming improvements in information technology and the fact that individuals learned to use this technology in new ways during the pandemic as one of the key drivers behind the trend.

The study showed that the average time for out-of-home activities fell from 334 minutes per day in 2019 to 271 in 2021 -- roughly from 5.5 hours per day out-of-home to 4.5 hours.

On the other hand, the researchers also noted positive effects of going nowhere faster, such as less time spent travelling, which may reduce fuel use and emissions and save people valuable time and money.