Beyond the Mask: Does a Covid-Generation Exist?

List of Figures

Figure 1: COVID pandemic progression in Hungary (from March 1, 2020 to May 02, 2022)

Figure 2: Number of patients hospitalized, ventilated, and deceased due to the pandemic in Hungary (from March 1, 2020 to May 02, 2022)

Figure 3: Key indicators of demography, population stock, and balance (2001–2022)

Figure 4: Frequency of COVID-related mentions during the study period

Figure 5: Changes in daily sentiment (word frequency)

Figure 6: Word frequencies: home and home office

Figure 7: Key topics and their frequency during Phase 1 of COVID-19

Figure 8: Frequency of words related to mask wearing (word frequency)

Figure 9: Key topics and their frequency during Phase 2 of COVID-19

Figure 10: Key topics and their frequency during Phase 3 of COVID-19

Figure 11: Frequency of words related to vaccination (word frequency)

Figure 12: Frequency of themes arousing interest throughout the entire COVID-19 period

Figure 13: Were you or are you infected by COVID? (All respondents, by parents’ school qualifications, percentage)

Figure 14: How did the COVID pandemic affect … ? (Respondents giving meaningful answer, 1–5 scale, mean)

Figure 15: How did the … change your ideas and plans about your future? (Respondents giving meaningful answer, means of 1–5 scale)

Figure 16: If you look at your life, lifestyle, and way of thinking today in the spring of 2023, what habits did you keep from the COVID times? (Respondents giving meaningful answer, percentage)

Figure 17: If you look at your life, lifestyle and thinking today in the spring of 2023, what habits did you keep from the COVID times? (Multidimensional scaling, ALSCAL model)

Figure 18: If you look at your life, lifestyle, and thinking today in the spring of 2023, what habits did you keep from the COVID times? (Public affairs, nothing remained based on political interest, percentage)

Figure 19: Personally, do you belong to any of the generations? Please mark up to two generations to which you feel you belong. (More than one answer can be marked, all respondents, percentage)

Figure 20: In your opinion, what extent of danger or threat do the following factors pose to Hungary? (Average on a scale of 1−10)

Figure 21: ALSCAL model of factors posing a threat to Hungary (multidimensional scaling)

List of Tables

Table 1: Excess mortality rate by age groups in Hungary, year/year (2017–2022)

Table 2: Excess mortality rate by age groups in Hungary, 2015–2019 average/COVID years (2015–2022)

Table 3: The impact of COVID-19 on youth (Consequences, impacts)

Table 4: Positive labels in the dimension of education

Table 5: Negative labels in the dimension of education

Table 6: Negative labels in the dimension of work

Table 7: Positive labels in the dimension of work

Table 8: Negative labels in the dimension of recreation

Table 9: Positive labels in the dimension of recreation

Table 10: Evaluation of the COVID pandemic as a whole, in the context of life in general, ANOVA (means and distributions)

Table 11: COVID-19’s impact on future plans, ANOVA (means and distributions)

Table 12: Nowadays, people are often grouped into generations based on their age, suggesting that each generation has distinct characteristics. Do you think this kind of grouping makes sense?* (All respondents, percentage)

Table 13: Nowadays, people are often grouped into generations based on their age, suggesting that each generation has distinct characteristics. Do you think this kind of grouping makes sense?* (Based on the subjective assessment of income situation, percentage)

Table 14: Personally, do you belong to any of the generations, based on age groups? (More than one answers can be marked, all respondents, percentage)

Table 15: If you had to characterize your generation in three words, which three words would you choose? Word association (N=2,156 mentions and 2,463 words)

Table 16: If you had to characterize your generation in three words, which three words would you choose? Word association (word cloud formed based on word frequency in the Under-20 and Over-24 age group)

Table 17: In your opinion, what are the areas where your generation is the most significantly different from all the other generations? Please select the three more important ones from the following list (All respondents, percentage)

Table 18: In your opinion, what are the areas where your generation is the most significantly different from all the other generations? Please select the three more important ones from the following list (based on age groups, all respondents, percentage)

Table 19: Summary of generational characteristics based on the focus group interviews

Table 20: In your opinion, what is the most pressing problem for young people in Hungary today? First association (N=2,029 answers based on three answers)

Foreword

The COVID pandemic struck the world like a bolt from the blue. Within two months of the first global news reports, lockdowns, curfews, and new workplace and school processes reshaped almost all of our daily lives, while our fears, psychological and physical states, and relationships underwent fundamental transformations. With the defeat or at least the taming of COVID, the time has come for an objective evaluation, which inevitably brings up not only the health, biological, and psychological lessons learned but also the legitimacy of sociological studies. One of the most essential aspects of these studies is whether this type of shared experience is suitable for testing generational logic, or more specifically, whether the pandemic and the related experiences are capable of shaping a generation out of the age groups that lived through it. In other words, can the formation of a COVID generation be considered justified, or at least are the conditions for its emergence present?

Several papers in the literature have discussed the generational effects of the pandemic (Goodwin, 2020; Green, 2020; Cherry, 2020; Arreaza–Robertson–Ruben, 2020). Although the terms used vary, such as “C generation,” “COVID–19 generation,” “Zoomer generation,” “Quaranteens,” “Corona generation,” or “Corona kids,” researchers unanimously agree that the COVID–19 pandemic has, or can have, generational effects. A phenomenon occurred worldwide that led to the need to rethink the generational concepts that had previously become overused and clichéd. The topic of generations has become exciting, relevant, and novel once again, shedding its previous stereotypes and attracting attention not only in the social sciences but also in political science, pedagogy, and psychology.

We refer to this new generation hypothetically as the “COVID generation.” Unlike the X, Y, and Z generations, the foundation of generational identity for the COVID generation is not based on cultural aspects, or the attitudes and reflections on certain technological tools like the Internet, social media, or other consumable goods or methods of acquiring information and communication, nor is it based on periodic changes in time. Instead, it is a completely unexpected, unpredictable, and global event that overrides all other divisions, creating the conditions for the emergence of an entirely new generation that could disrupt or rewrite the previous generational divisions. This generation is not defined by birth, life cycles, or family relationships, but rather by a historical event. Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic might not only create a generation at a local or national level, but it could also have a global, transnational significance, as the events of 2020 affected the world in a way that could be compared only to a wartime psychological impact.

The profile of a generation is shaped by its direct, mostly youthful experiences, and in this regard, the most important age range is the teens and twenties. A generation is most likely to form from an age group during this time, especially when a significant event or change occurs that directly impacts almost every member of that age group and evokes meaningful, detectable reactions from all other members of society. This also implies that such a cathartic event affects all members of society and has multigenerational consequences. However, the differences in reactions can be found in the depth and duration of these reactions due to the polarized shift in experiences. As Miller (2000) puts it, the winds of transformation “grip” the young people who are experiencing the defining period of their socialization. Their lives may begin in an earlier period, but they generally experience the major change as adolescents or young adults, during the phase when secondary (school, workplace) and tertiary (peer and leisure groups, communities) socialization is most influential (Nagy–Kerpel-Fronius, 2024). This life cycle is when political and cultural identities stabilize, and the political “self” develops most strongly (Szabó, 2009), so the changes experienced are preserved as a kind of “revolutionary consciousness” in the collective and individual memory of the young people who lived through it.