COVID-19 in everyday life: Contextualizing the pandemic

Abstract

This paper provides an overview and findings of the research on the social aspects of COVID-19 pandemic in Serbia. We aimed to investigate the immediate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on everyday life. The general hypothesis was that it contributed to changes in common rituals and routines, especially in the areas we focused on: family and housework, trust, the Internet use, and food practices. The study involved an online survey on the sample of 685 respondents, adult citizens of the Republic of Serbia. The main criterion for the selection of respondents was their legal age. The research was conducted during April 2020. We present and discuss the findings, give preliminary conclusions, and contextualize them within the current studies on the COVID-19 outbreak. The general research hypothesis has only been partially confirmed. Our findings suggest that the pandemic outbreak has disrupted people?s habitual established practices and strategies for managing daily life in the sense of either intensification or the absence of certain routines.