Experiencing Digital Life In The Time of COVID-19 Pandemic
Introduction :
From
the late 2019 to the whole ongoing year of 2020, people all around the world is
connecting with each other through the various digital platforms. Starting from
talking to their loved ones who are not in the residential place to attend an
educational or business conference, everything is being experiencing by us
through the various digital versions. COVID-19 pandemic didn’t allowed us to
physically connect with each other but it has allowed us to develop our
lifestyle with an advancement and nourishment of the duties which can be done being
also far away physically from each other via internet connection.
On
an average most of the time before the pandemic situation, most of the people
of India used to use the digital platforms for mainly entertainment, connecting
with friends, relatives and others via social medias and comparatively less for
educational and working purpose, as most of the works were done by presenting
physically in the work or educational place itself. But now to carry on our
everyday life we had to change our lifestyle and had to shift to digital life
to complete all of our duties. With the following points we can understand how
digital version of our life is reshaping our old lifestyle during the pandemic
period.
Trend
of digital networking:
In
the time of global spread of coronavirus,
when duties need to be fulfilled, the situation is forcing people indoors but
have to work. To make this situation in a balance, the internet becoming a
substitute for all the activities now and helping us to improve our networkship
in a global perspective.
Social
interaction
As
the prospect of leaving our houses becomes a distant reality, human connections
are now being routed through the internet; close to half the people on the
internet are either on social media or on messenger services to avoid social
gathering and to maintain physical distancing.
Screen
time:
As
the internet becomes increasingly relied upon, people’s screen times are
increasing; three out of four people are spending more time on their
smartphones, while one in two are spending more time on their laptops.
Virtual
realities
With
everyone home, small to large scale businesses have taken to the internet to
sell their services. With virtual classes, seminars, zoo tours, online car
sales and virtual phone launches, this looks to be the new normal for a while.
Entertainment
The
dependence on internet has boosted the prospects of online streaming services,
with almost a third of internet users streaming content on sites like Netlifx,
Amazon Prime and Disney+ Hotstar.
Along
with all these advancement and changes in life style, there is also some issue
regarding self-disclosure for the smartphone users. One of the most
distinguishing features of phones is a small size; something that makes viewing
and creating content generally more difficult compared with desktop computers.
Because of this difficulty a person tends to narrowly focus on completing the
task and become less cognizant of external factors. Along with this people tend
to be more self-disclosing on their phones lies in the feelings of comfort and
familiarity people associate with their phones. If a firm wishes to gain a
deeper understanding of the real preferences and needs of consumers, it may
obtain better insights by tracking what they say and do on their smartphones
than on their desktops. Likewise, because more self-disclosing content is often
perceived to be more honest, firms might encourage consumers to post reviews
from their personal devices, which is an increasing issue of digital lifestyle.
Internet
as a tool of disclosure:
According
to a report by ANI, using a smartphone can lead to greater self-disclosure.
This is according to a study in the Journal of Marketing titled "Full
Disclosure: How Smartphones Enhance Consumer Self-disclosure" and is
authored by Shiri Melumad and Robert Meyer.
Tweets
& reviews
Tweets
and reviews composed on smartphones are more likely to be written from the
perspective of the first person, to disclose negative emotions, and to discuss
the writer's private family and personal friends.
Online
ads
Likewise,
when consumers receive an online ad that requests personal information (such as
phone number and income), they are more likely to provide it when the request
is received on their smartphone compared to their desktop or laptop computer.
So
it can be seen how digitalization of our daily lifestyle leads to so many pros
and cons. Through this study this issue will be understood in a broader sense.
Relevance
of the study:
Anthropologists
or the Anthropology as a discipline itself always engages with the study of
human being in respect to time and place. Social anthropologists most of the time
do focus on the social issues faced by human being in a particular time and
space and they try to analyse and interpret the accordance behaviour of that
particular society.
In
the present day scenario whether it is in global or Indian context, we can see
that a huge transition of our lifestyle have been seen and the shifting of
previous physically present lifestyle to digital lifestyle is reshaping our
whole socio-cultural system. The enhancement that were added by the digital
dimensions in our life is actually going to make a habit of it also if the
pandemic situation is being overcome. We are feeling more comfort physically
but less comfort in mentally. But also trying to balance both the aspect to carry
on our life.
This
study will display a broader aspect of experiencing the digital life, it will
raise up different advantages along with many disadvantages faced by the people
of India during this pandemic period while shifting their old physical lifestyle
to digital platform. It will show up what are the different platforms that were
used by us, how much is the increasing
time and days, we are expensing to our screen time, it will focus on different
social and cultural experiences regarding the digital use of connecting to each
other and working from home and many more with the flow of the study. It will
also focus on the various kind of knowledge and training, people have received
and also what all they have shared with others through digital platforms. So in
the overall structure of the analysis and interpretation this study will
represent as an holistic study of the focused research topic.
Research
question:
What is the holistic scenario of
experiencing digital platforms in the time of COVID-19 pandemic in Indian context?
Aims
and Objectives:
The
aims and objectives of the study can be as follows:
1. To
find out what are the various digital platforms used by the people of India in
the time of pandemic to connect with others for educational, occupational,
entrainment and other purposes?
2. To
understand what are various kind of knowledge and experiences were gained and
shared by different people of India in
their different social and cultural context?
3. To
state an overall view of what are the various advantages and disadvantages of
digital life faced by people in the time of COVID-19 pandemic?
Methods
of data collection:
In
the present day context of India in respect to COVID-19 pandemic, it is not
allowed to do field work or carrying out face to face interview. For the
accomplishment of this present study, data will be collected from the
participants coming from various social, cultural and economic background, the
following methods will be used to collect data,
·
The questionnaire method will be used for
data collection. Questionnaire will be based on open ended and some close ended
questions. Questionnaire will be created
through google form and will be circulated vie google electronic mail (Gmail) and different social media platforms.
·
Telephonic semi-structured interview will
be carried out on approximate 20 participant using interview and case study method.
Analysis
of Data:
The
collected data will be classified on the basis of characteristics chosen for
the study and the recorded information will be described for the qualitative
analysis and interpretation will be done to reach
out the answer of the research question
.
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