For the Final Project in the Design Methods class, during Fall 2020, I decided to prototype a social platform that would allow people, all around the world, not only to socially engage with one another and learn new cultures, but help the families who have lost their jobs with user donations through ALO. Since, pandemic transformed our daily lifestyles very drastically, through my research, I found that a lot of societies suffer from negative emotional changes due to isolation, combined with a financial   decline. During a pandemic “In almost every country, cultural life has taken a hit in one way or another, in terms of both social and economic impact.” (1). Further according to “a recent study that estimated the global impact of the Spanish flu pandemic indicated that a considerable difference in mortality rates was observed between high- and low-income countries.” Additionally, ”Such inequalities result from efforts to control avian influenza that disproportionately burden poor countries and benefit wealthy ones, and they are also likely to result from an exacerbation of social injustice within the U.S. and other wealthy countries in the response to a pandemic.” (2).

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Sources:

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(1)

https://en.unesco.org/news/culture-covid-19-impact-and-response-tracker

(2)

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2600290/

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In many other sources, it is encouraged to study the differences between cultures in order to come up with a solution to help people to make better choices, especially during the pandemic. Unfortunately, there are a lot of factors, such as religion, culture, age, traditions, and etc. that influences people to have opposition to rules, therefore, diversifying each individual to be more cultured and openminded could be a way to help with this problem, even after a pandemic. Another source which agrees with that thought says: “But the current COVID-19 situation also offers us hope for new ways of forming and sustaining solidarity across cultural backgrounds, faith traditions, political systems and geographic borders.” (3). According to an article on “Cultural Challenges: The Most Important Challenge of COVID-19 Control Policies in Iran” by Hamid Jafari and Majid Amiri Gharaghani, “In order to control the epidemic of infectious diseases in developing and less-developed countries, it is necessary to pay attention to cultural differences.” (4)(5).

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Sources:

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(3)

https://en.unesco.org/news/socio-cultural-implications-covid-19

(4)

https://www.nap.edu/read/11917/chapter/6#155

(5)

https://www.oecd.org/coronavirus/policy-responses/culture-shock-covid-19- and-the-cultural-and-creative-sectors-08da9e0e/#section-d1e296

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“Human beings are a social species that relies on cooperation to survive and thrive.” (6). It is a reality that human survival best accomplished by being in social groups, since the beginning of civilization. Visual representation of the science behind this idea is beautiful illustrated by the Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell on YouTube (7). Breaking this natural cycle for all of us brings more challenges to our functionality, as “Hawkley points to evidence linking perceived social isolation with adverse health consequences including depression, poor sleep quality, impaired executive function, accelerated cognitive decline, poor cardiovascular function and impaired immunity at every stage of life.” (8).This type of connection not only would satisfy our basic human needs of having social interactions within a safe space, but also create opportunities for people to expose others to more diversity and get financial help as well. Therefore, it is crucial for a lot of societies across the world to leverage extra help from people who has the resources to help out with. 

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Sources:

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(6)

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-018-0389-1

(7)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGiQaabX3_o

(8)

https://www.apa.org/monitor/2019/05/ce-corner-isolation#:~:text=370%2C%20No.,at%20every%20stage%20of%20life.