Edited by: Sally Wai Chi Chan, The University of Newcastle, Australia
Reviewed by: María del Mar Molero, University of Almería, Spain; Paolo Roma, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy
This article was submitted to Personality and Social Psychology, a section of the journal Frontiers in Psychology
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
The spread of COVID-19 in Italy resulted in the implementation of a lockdown that obligated the first time the general populace to remain at home for approximately two months. This lockdown interrupted citizens’ professional and educational activities, in addition to closing shops, offices and educational institutions. The resulting changes in people’s daily routines and activities induced unexpected changes in their thoughts, feelings and attitudes, in addition to altering their life perceptions. Consequently, the present study explores how young adults perceived their lives under lockdown during the final week of March 2020, when the reported number of daily coronavirus infections reached its peak in Italy. The research was carried out among 293 university students (234 women and 59 men) with an average age of 20.85 years old (SD = 3.23). The researchers asked participants to describe the emotions, thoughts and experiences that characterized their time under lockdown. The study analyzed specific narratives related to time and space using grounded theory methodology, which was applied using Atlas 8 software, leading to the creation of 68 codes. The study organized these codes into three specific categories: confined in the present, confined in the past, and striving toward one’s goals. Finally, the researchers also created a core-category labeled “continuity of being.” The results showed that the closure of open spaces caused a division in participants’ perceptions of time continuity, with many viewing themselves as feeling fragmented and as living the present in a static and fixed way. Additionally, participants also saw the present as being discontinuous from the past, while, simultaneously, projecting toward the future and the changes it might bring. Finally, this study examined further implications surrounding individual projecting among young people in greater depth.
The first COVID-19 emergency lockdown in Italy was in place from March 9 to May 4, 2020. During this period, the daily lives of Italians were turned completely upside down, as various government decrees restricted routine educational, professional and social activities. Recent studies on the COVID-19 emergency have highlighted that forced isolation has had a great impact on people’s psychological condition (
In particular, many studies have focused on the lockdown’s impacts on children and adolescents (
Further variables associated with higher levels of depression, anxiety and stress were female gender, negative affect and detachment (
Moreover, psychological factors, such as self-efficacy, risk perception and civic engagement, had a central role in the adherence to the measures adopted by the institution to contain the spread of the virus (
New individual and social insights about “we-ness” awareness arise (
However, no known studies have investigated how the pandemic has affected people’s subjective perceptions of time.
As observed in the biographies of those who have lived through experiences such as spending time in prison, forced confinement influence one’s perceptions of time. For example, in his biography, Nelson
More recently,
In principle, from an ecological perspective, individual dimensions and social events influence behaviors, as every external change modifies people’s reference frameworks, and, in turn, these changes alter one’s internal world and their world perceptions (
Concerning natural disaster-related emergencies, such as floods, earthquakes and pandemics, common sense reflections emphasize their catastrophic aspects. However, these circumstances take also on unexpected dimensions, such as changes in relational and time perspectives. Consequently, significant external events cause time and space new perceptions, reconstructing individuals’ inner worlds and their connections with their environmental frameworks.
In addition, according to the community psychology perspective utilized by the present study, space and time are both framed also by environmental, social and relational circumstances (
Through-out life, people must adapt to circumstances that require the integration of new life events and changes (
Life transition events lead to changes in time perceptions (
In particular, life transitions are moments where time continuity is broken because of changes in temporal perspectives that result in a division between past experiences and future plans.
This implies that young adults seek information and knowledge regarding social goals, in order to maximize their future opportunities. Young adulthood is in fact characterized by new identity exploration and development and is often coupled with significant life changes, such as entering the labor market, achieving financial independence and establishing long-term intimate relationships (
However, in the words of
Therefore, listening to the voices of Italian youth during the peak of the unexpected COVID-19 pandemic let researchers deepen their understanding of how time perceptions could affect young people confined at home, who generally already perceived the future in uncertain, accelerated and fragmented terms (
To better understand time perceptions and representations during the lockdown, we conducted a research with Italian university students to document their personal experiences of this unexpected and unforeseen event.
From this perspective, understanding young adults’ time perceptions while being confined at home due to the COVID-19 pandemic would provide valuable contributions to the existing literature.
In this light, the present article seeks to expand upon the existing research, by elaborating upon the effects of the COVID-19 lockdown on young Italian students’ psychological perceptions of time.
This study analyses students’ reports regarding their personal lives during home confinement. Generally, time is “taken into account in terms of life events and life experiences and, therefore, refers to a life-course perspective that is often processed in retrospect” (
This study sought to explore the effects of the sudden life changes resulting from the COVID-19 lockdown, in addition to examining their implications and impacts on participants’ daily lives, emotions and thoughts. Specifically, this study further investigated the thoughts and emotions related to time perceptions in a confined space, seeking to expand upon the existing knowledge regarding any related impacts on well-being or distress. The researchers collected data in Italy during the last week of March 2020, when the Italian government decreed a total lockdown as measure to contain the spread of COVID-19.
The research participants were composed of psychology students from the University of Naples Federico II. Recruitment occurred during online lessons, via invitations from teachers inviting students to share their thoughts about the lockdown through the digital platform, SurveyMonkey. The study involved a total of 293 students, including 234 females and 59 males, between 19 and 29 years old, with an average of 20.85 years (SD = 3.22). The strong gender disparity is representative of the general population of psychology students in Italy, in which women comprise 77.6% of students (
Participant characteristics.
Male | 20.1 | 59 |
Female | 79.9 | 234 |
Living with one or both parents | 90.8 | 266 |
Living alone | 0.7 | 2 |
Living with a partner | 1.0 | 3 |
Living with one or more roommates | 3.1 | 9 |
Living with other family members | 4.4 | 13 |
100 | 293 |
This study used a storytelling approach, collecting individual and relational experiences with the aim of creating shared awareness. Therefore, storytelling was much more than a device to deepen individual biographical paths, as it also served as a tool for shared support, common identification and social change. The researchers collected students’ texts using the online platform SurveyMonkey as a teaching tool to support an online undergraduate community psychology course. The study asked participants to report their thoughts and emotions related to their lockdown experiences, as well as any other actions or events that they wished to share, limiting their written contributions to 10,000 characters or less. In the context of this study, it is pertinent to highlight the importance of using qualitative methods to detect shared meaning in individual stories using specific, defined procedures (
We conducted the textual analysis using grounded theory methodology (GTM), which develops theoretical frameworks through the close examination of participants’ narratives. It is a bottom up, qualitative approach, in which findings emerge from the data, in accordance with
Grounded Theory is a methodology applied to qualitative research that involves the construction of hypotheses and theories through the collecting and analysis of data and for this reason it is used in all those researches in which there is no well-defined starting hypothesis.
Indeed, it was already used in other research that have deepened the psychological impact of the COVID-19 emergency (
The researchers began by open coding the texts and then grouping codes into larger categories in order to more fully understand the texts’ proposed meanings. Namely, this study structured data analysis in 5 phases: (a) familiarization with the data, (b) initial code generation, (c) grouping the codes and their subsequent review, (d) defining and labeling the codes, and (e) creating code macro-categories and describing any relationships among them. Throughout all five steps, the research team interacted and discussed meanings using their reflective competences, agreeing up content definitions through these reciprocal and collective thought interactions.
For the data analysis Atlas 8 software (
The analysis of the textual material resulted in 68 codes. The researchers subsequently organized these codes into 10 groups, which they later divided in three macro-categories (see
Coding process.
Code | Codes group | Macro-categories |
This macro-category is comprised of code groups that refer to participants’ perceptions of the present time. It is indicative of how young people involved in the study dealt with the passage of time during the lockdown at home in a confined space. In fact, the study revealed four distinct code groups that were “
One identified code group encompassed participants whose time perceptions could be characterized as “
These participants perceived time as frozen (
A second identified code group regarding how participants experienced everyday life during the lockdown comprised those who were “
In addition, many participants who were “
The third code group was comprised of participants whose perceptions could be described as “
In fact, this dramatic, unprecedented situation has led many participants to experience confusion and to lose sight of their past reference points (
Finally, the fourth code group consisted of texts who viewed the lockdown as a chance to adopt “
In addition, participants whose time perceptions were shaped by their “
Finally, participants who embraced “
This macro-category contains all code groups that refer to participants who indicated tendencies to escape from the present by taking refuge in the past. Many young people reported a desire to return to the past, prior to the pandemic and the lockdown. This macro-category is comprised of two specific code groups, whose participants both evoked memories of their earlier lives and/or desired past actions that they did not take.
The first code group consisted of participants who sought to “
In some cases, participants also expressed awareness in conjunction with certain feelings of guilt related to their failures to put prevention and common sense’ behaviors into practice earlier in the pandemic, which could have minimized the spread of COVID-19 (
The second code group consisted of participants whose time perceptions focused on a “
Participants’ references to their living spaces comprise another important aspect of this code group. Some participants described their homes, which typically embodied feelings of safety and protection, as places of confinement similar to a prison, given the limits they imposed upon participants’ freedoms. The lockdown also forced family members to share domestic spaces for much longer than in the pre-pandemic past, leading many young people to feel that their physical and mental spaces were being invaded (
The final macro-category includes four code groups that focus on a sort of “time travel” on the part of the study participants. This journey led participants to explore new time perceptions that they had never experienced before, in addition to well-known domestic spaces that were viewed in a different light. This journey also led participants to reassess their lives and enhanced their desire to live without wasting a moment, leading them to evolve, to seek new experiences and to imagine a new future. The first code group can be characterized by a philosophy based upon the belief that, “
The second code group consisted of participants who were “
The third future-focused code group viewed the pandemic as a sort of “
The uniqueness of the lockdown experience has led participants to believe that their future attitudes and behaviors will change, in addition to accepting the idea that there will be talk of a before and after COVID-19, which they considered to be an epochal event (
The fourth and final code group, entitled “
This dramatic experience has caused many participants to develop a greater awareness of themselves and their own lives and to experience personal growth (
Finally, the researchers created a core category labeled, “continuity of being” (see
Core category, continuity of being.
In light of the proactive and empowering approaches to the lockdown adopted by many participants, we named the core category, “
During the process of reading and interpreting the codes from this study and choosing participant quotations, the research team focused on the importance of the time-space divide that affected the interviewees’ emotions and thoughts. In fact, many interviewees reported changes in their daily time management in a confined space, in comparison with their usual activities. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, it would be interesting to understand any associations among people’s attitudes toward time and their levels of well-being, distress and anxiety. The experience of being spatially confined also confined many participants’ time perceptions to the present or in the past. However, for some participants, the lockdown has represented an unexpected opportunity to better understand themselves and to envision their futures.
Being confined in the present implied different meanings among the research participants. For multiple participants, being confined in the present has represented an opportunity to reorganize their time management and spaces, as well as to try new activities. However, for others, a present shaped by the lockdown represented a genuine obstacle that impeded their ability to envision new organizations of time and space, constructing their time perceptions of the present based upon their expectations to resume their pre-pandemic lives.
Conversely, other participants reported that home confinement entailed an excess of downtime that generated a state of stunned confusion, as well as perceptions of time characterized by feelings of suspension and immobility. Among these students, their lockdown experiences were framed by anguish, fear, uncertainty and sadness in relation to the recent events linked to the COVID-19 pandemic, in addition to an unrelenting focus on the current situation and an inability to shift their focus to past events or hope for the future “
Furthermore, among participants, a common sense of loss emerged. Home confinement became a distressing experience in a context of heightened anxiety surrounding death. This suspended, uncertain time confronted the study participants with their most primitive fears, such as their fear of death as pandemic dreaming also highlighted (
Conversely, several interviewees reported feelings of confinement in the past, shaped by positive nostalgic memories of their past everyday lives prior to the COVID-19 lockdown (
Moreover, the lockdown experience resulted in freedom from pre-pandemic routines, as well as the need to cope with this new reality. Being trapped in the present while looking toward the future induced many young interviewees to rediscover the potentiality of space and to create new plans for their own futures. Therefore, confinement at home and spatial distance could be viewed as a sort of transitional experience or a potential turning point.
It is important to mention that, although many young respondents experienced negative feelings regarding the lockdown, some of them were able to view the resulting spatial and time restrictions in a positive light, transforming their time under lockdown into something productive and finding ‘
Moreover, the core category, “
Individual narratives encompass the expression of individual and collective experience-making processes. Narration involves biographical, reconstruction, reinsertion, recreation, realignment and relocation perspectives. Additionally, for some authors, narration also serves as a semiotic device mediating the connection between continuity and discontinuity, aimed not only at carrying out the previously mentioned functions, but also at creating new dynamic relations among them (
Despite the contributions to the deepening of the existing literature, this study’s limitations included first of all its convenience sampling (non-probabilistic), so the generalization of results should be taken with caution. The unbalanced number of male and female respondents, although the sex composition of participants was representative of the general population of Italian psychology students (
The space-time divide resulting from participants’ lockdown experiences was unexpected among the research team. Our students’ voices emphasized this aspect of the lockdown; thus, we sought to more profoundly explore this part of their experiences. Under lockdown, participants had to establish new time perceptions and new ways of “social sharing” to overcome physical confinement and distancing and to avoid further psychological distress in their daily lives.
According to Pichon-Rivière, in order to survive, hope must be planned through collective projects that help people face difficulties and changes. Planning hope emerges from people’s abilities to create alternatives to collectively share spaces, such as singing from balconies in the context of the lockdown, as described by
Moroccan anthropologist Zakaria
The lockdown period has deprived people of their health, families and careers, but also of small everyday things, like grabbing a coffee in the morning or with friends, a kiss or a hug, affection, feelings, nature and the power of sharing. Furthermore, home confinement under lockdown implied an absence of close physical contact and the presence of other people in our lives. Therefore, maintaining continuity with past experiences and future goals, without becoming trapped in the present, is a crucial need and a psychological resilience strategy to maintain life continuity. Tools and spaces for sharing during emergencies, became a goal. It will help to lower distress and favor a recovery path of continuity with the past and with new future perspectives. The continuity of time and space to meet and interact is a basic need that characterizes young people’s life contributing to their well-being (
The soundness of these findings suggests the importance to take into account the perception of time, especially among young people that particularly suffer for their space limitation and lack of social interactions. Moreover, it would be interesting to devote some studies to the effect of lockdown space limitation on children with dyslexia already affected by time processing difficulties (
In the words of Ernest
The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.
Studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by the University of Naples Federico II Department of Humanities’ Ethics Board for Research in Psychology (March 15, 2020). Participants provided written informed consent to participate in this study. Written informed consent was obtained from the individual(s) for the publication of any potentially identifiable images or data included in this article.
All authors listed have made substantial, direct and intellectual contributions to this research, and approved it for publication.
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.