The impact of social isolation and changes in work patterns on ongoing thought during the first COVID-19 lockdown in the United Kingdom

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic led to lockdowns in countries across the world, changing the lives of billions of people. The United Kingdom's first national lockdown, for example, restricted people's ability to socialize and work. The current study examined how changes to socializing and working during this lockdown impacted ongoing thought patterns in daily life. We compared the prevalence of thought patterns between two independent real-world, experience-sampling cohorts, collected before and during lockdown. In both samples, young (18 to 35 y) and older (55+ y) participants completed experience-sampling measures five times daily for 7 d. Dimension reduction was applied to these data to identify common "patterns of thought." Linear mixed modeling compared the prevalence of each thought pattern 1) before and during lockdown, 2) in different age groups, and 3) across different social and activity contexts. During lockdown, when people were alone, social thinking was reduced, but on the rare occasions when social interactions were possible, we observed a greater increase in social thinking than prelockdown. Furthermore, lockdown was associated with a reduction in future-directed problem solving, but this thought pattern was reinstated when individuals engaged in work. Therefore, our study suggests that the lockdown led to significant changes in ongoing thought patterns in daily life and that these changes were associated with changes to our daily routine that occurred during lockdown.

Keywords: COVID-19; experience sampling; isolation; lockdown; thoughts.

Fig. 1.

Changes to daily life during lockdown and patterns of ongoing thought identified across both experience-sampling datasets (pre- and during lockdown). (A) Bar chart comparing the mean percentage of experience-sampling responses in which participants said they were 1) alone, 2) around other people but not interacting, or 3) around people and interacting, between age groups and samples, demonstrating that during lockdown, both age groups reported being alone more than prelockdown. Error bars represent 95% CIs (N observations = 4,955). (B) The pie chart shows the percentage of responses for each location option in the lockdown sample, demonstrating that the majority (85%) of responses were “inside at home” (N observations = 1,865). (C) Word clouds representing the item loadings on the five patterns of thought identified in the thought data from both samples (pre- and during lockdown) (N observations = 4,876) using PCA. Each word represents an experience-sampling item (22 items; SI Appendix, Table S1). Font size represents the magnitude of the loading, and the color describes the direction. Warm colors reflect positive loadings, while cool colors reflect negative loadings (see SI Appendix, Table S2 for exact component loadings).

Fig. 2.

A summary of the LMMs’ results comparing the prevalence of each thought pattern between 1) pre- and during-lockdown samples, 2) age groups, and 3) social environments. On the left-hand side, there are the word clouds representing each thought pattern. Each word represents an experience-sampling item (SI Appendix, Table S1). Font size represents the magnitude of the loading, and the color describes the direction. Warm colors reflect positive loadings, while cool colors reflect negative loadings. The y-axis of each graph shows the predicted means for each thought pattern. The x-axis shows the social environment options: 1) alone, 2) around people but not interacting, and 3) around people and interacting. White bars represent the prelockdown sample, and gray bars represent the lockdown sample. Each bar graph is split by age group, with young participants on the left and older on the right. Error bars represent the 95% CIs for each predicted mean. In total, 195 participants (4,870 observations) were included in this analysis.

Fig. 3.

A summary of the LMMs’ results comparing the prevalence of each thought pattern between 1) current activities and 2) age groups in the lockdown sample. On the left-hand side, there are the word clouds representing each thought pattern. Each word represents an experience-sampling item (SI Appendix, Table S1). Font size represents the magnitude of the loading, and the color describes the direction. Warm colors reflect positive loadings, while cool colors reflect negative loadings. The y-axis of each graph shows the predicted means for each thought pattern. The x-axis shows the five activity categories: 1) working, 2) leisure activities, 3) social interactions, 4) media consumption, and 5) essential tasks (see SI Appendix for details). White bars represent young participants, and gray bars represent older participants. Error bars represent the 95% CIs for each predicted mean. In total, 81 participants (1,777 observations) were included in this analysis.