Year 2020 has been different in so many ways. None of us ordinary people could have foreseen the corona pandemic, and only a few medical experts and organisations worried before it broke out. We had not foreseen that travels and conferences were to be frozen. True, they had become too many, and were not quite as necessary as we had made them to be. Tourism, including air travels with high pollution, and other wastages and spending, had gone out of hand, especially in the West. We had not at all imagined that there would be lockdown of towns and cities, and numerous restrictions regarding work, sports, cultural events, weddings, travels, social behaviour, closure of hotels and industries, and so on. In the West, where some five to ten percent of the very old (in their 80s and 90s) are cared for in old people’s homes, the spread of COVID-19, once it hit an institution, would be fast and many residents/patients would fall very ill with a high death toll. Often, that led to these institutions not allowing visitors, and even medical personnel would sometimes only ‘examine’ patients over telephone or internet. Too often, people would end their lives seduced on drugs, without even having relatives or friends allowed in to take a last farewell. Many of the measures have ignored that none of us can live, or die, without love and social contact.
The frequent use of home offices has changed the working life, and reduced professional and social contact with colleagues. Yet, it is evident that for most companies and organisations productivity is lower when staff cannot meet colleagues regularly at work, discuss work issues and maintain social contact. For some, a combination of working at home and in the office (or other work place) can be an advantage, at least for some months or weeks, or half days. Telenor HQ in Oslo has already sold their prestigious office complex because their thousands of staff members work mostly from home. Yet, I believe that decision was premature, yes, even with access to Telenor’s mobile network and more.
To share opinions and discuss in person with colleagues at the workplace is essential, but we may want to cut the work days shorter once in a while, or stay at home to concentrate on specific tasks, without being told that we then are absent. When I in my younger days was a university staff member in Oslo, we had that flexibility, and I always found it easier to ‘hide’ at home or in a quiet library to read, think and write without interruptions, and perhaps go for a walk or visit a cafe during ordinary working hours, and write at night or other odd hours. At the same time, if we don’t meet colleagues, attend seminars and workshops, and have the possibility of having informal contact with others, we stagnate in our thinking and creativity. We may also develop a feeling of loneliness and lose contact with developments in our field of work. For young people, it is especially important to be socialised into their profession, and for older people, it is important to get new ideas from young people.
It has always been known that people who work alone, such as in small businesses and specialised professions and vocations, face an extra burden not having close colleagues they can talk with in their daily work situations, who fully understand the small and big issues of their work, and they may lack possibility to compare ideas and results with others to keep up own good professional standards. A dentist or doctor who works quite alone and isolated may repeat the same mistakes and not realise that he or she can do things differently and better. Courses and seminars may help, but informal talks with colleagues remain important.
In my home country Norway, farmers are nowadays often working entirely alone the whole day, sitting on the tractor or other machine in a mechanised farm. They cannot afford to hire anyone to help and the wife would often have a job outside the farm, and the children would be busy at school. Well, I shouldn’t assume that a Norwegian farmer is always a man, because in the last generation or so, the percentage of women farmers has grown and is now moving towards twenty percent. Earlier, small fishermen would often work alone, too, or with one or two persons together. Today, larger boat mechanisation has led to boats with quite large crews.
In education, some countries and locations have during the corona pandemic closed their schools for long periods, although it is not proven that it always has a clear effect and reduced spread of infection. Children don’t get infected as easily as older people, they don’t usually get very sick, and it seems they don’t even transmit infection to others as easily as adults, including teachers. However, teachers and staff at school would, for good reason, be worried since they cannot always keep social distance to the children. If a school has a corona outbreak, the wise thing to do, is to close the school for some time until the situation is under control. However, there are many disadvantages if schools are closed for long periods; many children would have difficult home situations, and there could be increased abuse in the home or community.
Distance education and some form of homeschooling, can never be equally good as the ordinary school. But ordinary schools can generally improve and place more emphasis on socialisation, not only their learning for tests and exams, as we in our time think is so important. I believe that school days can be shorter than today, even after the pandemic is over, and children can have some extended homework or individual and group projects, perhaps including some distance education support. We should also be aware that not all children have access to e-learning technology, or even if they do, it may be too expensive to use, perhaps except for the mobile phone.
Older teenagers and young adults at colleges and universities can cope better with distance education than others. But again, at that age, social contact with age mates and friends is very important. Also, I cannot quite understand how one can become fully qualified in a profession without having discussed with peers and teachers. An online professional and technical competence with great exam results would never have it all.
In sum, I believe it is important that we keep cautious about how much of the social aspects we can live without at work, in education, and spare time activities. We can make some changes, corona or not, but we must never just let technology allow us to live and work more in isolation. The wastage of resources and time in travels and other things can be reduced, but even some unnecessary things may actually help in getting higher productivity and a better life. We must remember that people are social beings—and as we modernise the world, we must keep in mind that we can never be replaced by machines, yes, in spite of some thinking that corona has helped us give technology more prominence.
Atle Hetland
The writer is a senior Norwegian social scientist with experience in research, diplomacy and development aid.