Article created by: Denis Krotovas
In one way or another, every single one of us had our lives impacted by the relatively recent Covid-19 pandemic. After all, a global virus bringing a nearly worldwide lockdown is bound to create some permanent changes in our everyday reality.
Of course, major events like this have the tendency to shake up the ground we’re standing on and change some things irreversibly. But with not all of it being obvious at first glance, one Redditor decided to dig a little deeper and ask a question about what the pandemic ruined a lot more than we realized. Scroll down to read what people online answered!
More info: Reddit
The pandemic divided people. There were so much anger and hate between each other - vaxxed vs non-vaxxed , mask vs no mask etc.
It ruined the illusion I had that my fellow humans were generally smart and well adjusted. Some had weird opinions but we agreed on the basics of humanity and how to keep it together.
It is clearly not the case.
It really feels like corporations have an even stronger grip on the United States than ever. Like we are really being squeezed in every way, and it's because our government is so heavily lobbied and controlled by corporations.
Pay rate, job security, benefits. All of these things seems to be getting objectively worse, or stagnating at best.
A lot of smaller businesses completely died because of it.
My social battery. I am so drained all the time, I never want to do anything outside of work, even when it’s something i previously enjoyed. I’d rather stay home.
Tipping culture expanded, tips expectation went up, and never came back down.
The Social Contract. For example just being decent to one another. That’s been on decline but post pandemic it has not recovered.
Things such as respecting public spaces or others is gone for the most part. Feels like no one cares anymore and selfishness rules.
Cheap food. The supply chain either still hasn't stabilized or it has and we are being taken advantage of.
A lot of people's basic manners.
Availability. I’m a night owl and used to grocery shop at 2 am just by myself me and my headphones it was glorious.
Our media literacy/trust wasn’t great pre-pandemic, but post we’re completely screwed. Nobody knows who or what to believe anymore. Objective truths are no longer objective truths, they’re instead pieces of a larger conspiracy or agenda.
My sense of time. I'm at a point now where I'll be thinking of something from a couple months ago and then I'll be corrected that it actually happened nearly 3 years ago.
Ruined the social skills of a whole lot of kids. Kids started kindergarten and then basically got yanked out of that for two years and stuck at home. Some struggle just to read 'cuz they missed those years.
The economy never really went back to the way it was pre pandemic. Prices never normalized and the selection of products is much more narrow then it used to be. So everything now is more expensive, for smaller amounts of less selection of worse quality.
Trust in the Government. It wasn’t 100% before by any means but it certainly took a nose dive during and after COVID.
Healthcare. The industry and the people in it who saw a lot of preventable dying and sickness are broken.
It’s not the same as it was before, and it probably won’t ever be.
Businesses' cleanliness and hours.
Go to some local box store, like Target. Walk around and see just how trashy it looks now. Clothes on the floor, because they don't have enough staff to pick up the mess. Half empty shelves. It's like they're in a perpetual state of closing down.
Also, lots of late night stores and restaurants cut hours and never returned them. There's nowhere for a night owl to shop at a grocery store near me anymore. Used to have a 24 hour grocery, now they close at 10 or something.
Mental health. i get services from a free clinic, but they're absolutely overworked. one of my previous therapists was dealing with like 70 patients. i have no idea how she lasted as long as she did.
Faith in science and medicine for a lot of people.
Alcoholism. It became normalized to drink at home, alone, during the day...etc. I know a lot of people who have maintained that habit even now.
The education and future of every kid born between 2006-2010. Ask any teacher. It’s a lost generation. They’re years behind, if even still in school.
The local live music industry.
Restaurant menus.
Communication. The shutdown caused us to lean heavily on new less efficient communication methods to get by and now that we're back, people haven't stopped leaning on them.
We have zoom meetings with people in the same building as us instead of walking 20 feet to their office. We block off hours for meetings that should be a sentence just to hang out on videocalls. People will g-chat (Gmail instant message )me to set up a zoom meeting with our cameras off for a single question. . . .AKA a phonecall with extra steps.
Everything is a meeting now . People end up missing one meeting because they're double booked in a second meeting while running late for a third. Meanwhile not one of them needed to be a meeting
Everyone also expects immediate response from everyone at any time a day while also somehow being entirely unavailable themselves.
Driving on roads, apparently there is a backslide ~~and~~ in how good we are at it and we've never recovered.
24 hour stores/restaurants/services in general.
The ability for young people to acquire the same quality of life that their parents and grandparents have.
Snow days for schools.
Organic dating.
