Pandemic as a Factor of Deformation of Social Time and Space in the Postmodern Community

The COVID-19 pandemic has defined new vectors for the development of the world community and social institutions. At the same time, the impact of the pandemic crisis on the evolution of civil society may differ significantly in the national (tactical) and global (strategic) dimensions. If at the national level there is a likely expansion of the space for public activism (medical volunteering, social assistance, etc.), then globally it is threatened by the de-intensification of international non-governmental cooperation and attempts to revise civil rights and freedoms. Today it is no longer possible to name a single area of ​​public life that has not been affected by the coronavirus pandemic. Directly or indirectly, the consequences of the worldwide spread of the COVID-19 virus are experienced by everyone - government authorities, large and small businesses, citizens of the vast majority of countries. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the future of each of the social actors is largely determined today, depending on the adequacy of the response to the pandemic crisis, the ability to absorb its most painful manifestations, and, possibly, find new opportunities for development in this difficult situation. The aim of the article is to investigate the vectors of influence of the coronavirus pandemic as a factor of deformation of social time and space in the conditions of postmodern society.

Social Isolation, Caregiving Alone, and Caregiving Stress in Family Caregivers of Older Adults in Korea

The tendency of caregiving alone is increasing, and these solo caregivers often perceive caregiving responsibilities as a burden. Still, literature on positive aspects of caregiving shows that not all caregivers experience severe distress. Little is known on which factors make a difference in experiencing caregiving distress among solo caregivers. We focused on the empirical findings on the negative impact of social isolation on caregiver’s mental health, examining if and how the intersection of solo caregiving and social isolation is related to severe caregiving stress among caregivers of older adults in Korea. We analyzed 501 family caregivers of older adults in Korea using survey data from the Care Work and the Economy research project (2018). We conducted ordinal logistic regression analysis. The findings show that solo caregivers with a lack of social time fall under the most at-risk group of caregivers in terms of experiencing severe stress (OR=3.72, SE=0.93) whereas solo caregivers with enough social time did not show significantly higher stress compared to the reference group (OR=1.50, SE=0.43). Being socially isolated caregivers still had high levels of stress despite the division of care (OR=2.16, SE=0.55), implying the need to provide caregivers more time for social interaction with others. The current public long-term care insurance in Korea provides limited hours of in-home care aide services to enable aging in place of older adults. To reduce the social isolation of caregivers, it is necessary to extend the service hours and provide support, such as creating online caregiver networks.

Exploring the Ecology of Third Age Informal Language Learner Groups

This research explores the factors involved in the emergence of an independently organized Third Age informal language learner group in a community centre in Japan. The methodology applies PPCT (Process-Person-Context-Time) from Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological approach to provide a detailed perspective of the people, the environment and settings over time to show how these factors interact to construct an emergent learner group. The analysis looks at how and why this specific learner ecology emerges and ultimately, how it can benefit the Third Age and inform healthy ageing policy. The findings show that by engaging in second language learning, the participants find meaningful and active involvement in the group by creating a setting that welcomes self-expression, while balancing limiting and facilitating factors of resilience and reciprocal support, self-management, sage-ing, interest, agency, and responsibility. The result is the creation of a multilingual, multicultural, and multigenerational place of inclusion within the community. The study highlights the heterogeneity of the 3rd Age and illustrates the interplay of contexts outside of the learner group from micro to macro, individual and group resources, and the influence of the specific social time period. It also shows the social importance of creating opportunities for autonomous informal language learning settings in the community while highlighting the impact of Third Age agency.

“It's Rougher on Me Than It Is on Him”: Family Caregiver–Generated and Prioritized Illness Concerns While Patients Undergo Cancer Treatments

PURPOSE: Research eliciting patients' illness concerns has typically focused later in the cancer continuum, rather than during cancer treatments. Family caregiver concerns are overlooked during this time. Less is known about how patients and caregivers prioritize concerns during cancer treatments, which holds potential for improving supportive oncology care (ie, primary palliative care). The purpose of this study was to elicit and compare which domains of supportive oncology are of highest importance to patients and caregivers during cancer treatments. METHODS: Freelisting, a cognitive anthropology method, was used to elicit concerns in order of importance. Freelist data were analyzed using Smith's salience index. Qualitative interviews were conducted with a caregiver subsample to add explanatory insights. RESULTS: In descending order, pain, death, fear, family, and awful were salient Freelist items for patients (n = 65), whereas sadness, time-consuming, support, anger, tired, death, and frustration were salient for caregivers (n = 24). When integrated with supportive oncology domains, patients' concerns reflected a prioritization of the physical (pain) and emotional (death, fear, and awful) domains, with less emphasis on social (family) aspects. Caregivers' prioritized the emotional (sadness, anger, death, and frustration) and social (time-consuming and support) domains, with less emphasis on the physical (tired) aspects. CONCLUSION: Our findings suggest that enhancing primary palliative care delivery by oncology teams requires systems thinking to support both the patient and caregiver as the primary unit of care. Primary palliative care may be improved by prioritizing interventions that address physical concerns among patients as well as key social concerns among caregivers to support the complex caregiving role while patients undergo cancer treatments.

What Time Alone Offers: Narratives of Solitude From Adolescence to Older Adulthood

Solitude – the state of being alone and not physically with another – can be rewarding. The present research explored the potential benefits of solitude from a pragmatist approach: a ground-up, top-down perspective that is receptive to new knowledge but informed by theory. Participant recruitment was stratified by age and gender, and the sample involved 2,035 individuals including adolescents (13–16 years), adults (35–55 years), or older adults (65+ years). Data were analyzed with a mixed-methods approach. Coded themes from brief narratives about solitude were extracted, and their frequencies (i.e., their salience to participants) were compared across the lifespan. Themes were then correlated with two indicators of well-being in solitude: self-determined motivation for solitude and peaceful mood. Several prominent themes emerged when talking about time spent in solitude. With the exception of feeling competent in solitude, which was described frequently but consistently unrelated to self-reported well-being regardless of age, benefits of solitude tended to shift over the lifespan. Some qualities, such as a sense of autonomy (self-connection and reliance; absence of pressure), were salient and consequential for everyone, but increasingly so from adolescence to older adulthood. Older adults also reported feeling most peaceful in solitude and described their social connection and alienation less frequently, suggesting they see solitude and social time as more distinct states. Findings are discussed in light of existing work on solitude across the lifespan, and theoretical frameworks that spoke well to the data (e.g., self-determination theory).

Barriers and Motivators to Physical Activity Prior to Starting a Community-Based Walking Program

Despite the clear benefits of an active lifestyle, most American adults fail to meet physical activity (PA) guidelines. Because of its safety and ease, walking is a promising population-level strategy to increase PA. There is a need to further understand why adults do and do not participate in walking. This study provides a broader understanding of barriers and motivators of walking prior to starting a walking program. Four years of baseline data from a community-based walking program were analyzed (n = 1491). Descriptive statistics summarized participant characteristics, barriers, reinforcements, and current PA. Chi-square tests were used to assess differences in the barrier and reinforcement responses between participant’s PA level and age categories. Open-ended responses were analyzed using thematic analysis. On average, participants were white (96%), middle-aged (52 ± 13 years old) females (92%). Poor weather and time were frequently reported barriers to walking. Open-ended responses (n = 141) identified additional barriers of lack of motivation (n = 37), joint issues (n = 29), fatigue (n = 24), safety or lack of environmental supports (n = 17), family or work demands (n = 15), and lacking a walking partner (n = 9). Good weather, health, and weight loss were frequently reported motivators. Additional motivators (n = 282) identified included stress relief and mental health (n = 82), social time (n = 70), dog care (n = 41), other health benefits (n = 38), connect with nature (n = 19), enjoyment (14), occupation (n = 11), and environmental and community supports (n = 6). Findings highlight the importance of understanding participant barriers and motivators for PA before starting a program. Future research should examine how reported barriers and motivators are related to program completion and adherence. Tailoring community-based programs to address specific barriers and motivators may enable more participants to effectively change and maintain PA.

A graph neural network based algorithm for Point-of-Interest recommendation using social relation and time series

POI recommendation has gradually become an important topic in the field of service recommendation, which is always achieved by mining user behavior patterns. However, the context information of the collaborative signal is not encoded in the embedding process of traditional POI recommendation methods, which is not enough to capture the collaborative signal among different users. Therefore, a POI recommendation algorithm is presented by using social-time context graph neural network model (GNN) in Location-based social networks. First, it finds similarities between different social relationships based on the users' social and temporal behavior. Then, the similarity among different users is calculated by an improved Euclidean distance. Finally, it integrates the graph neural network, the interaction bipartite graph of users and social-time information into the algorithm to generate the final recommendation list in this paper. Experiments on real datasets show that the proposed method is superior to the state-of-the-art POI recommendation methods.

“Priority 2030” in the Context of the Development of Social Institutions in Russia

The relevance of the article is associated by the author with the complex socioeconomic, political realities in which modern Russian society finds itself. The author turns to the category “social time” to characterize the changes in various spheres of society’s life. Focusing on such modern trends as digitalization, commercialization, atomization of society and the individual, the author turns to the category of “human capital”, designed to smooth out the indicated negative phenomena and restore the integrity of the social communications system. As a confirmation of the importance of human capital development at the state level, the article analyzes the fundamental doctrinal documents in the area under consideration. The author is elected for understanding the Priority-2030 program as an urgent initiative aimed, among other things, at building up human capital with the help of the education system. The author analyzes various authors’ positions in order to identify threats that impede the development of human capital within the education system. The methodological basis of the study was the methods of content analysis of the works of leading researchers, as well as discourse analysis of publications in the media and information resources. Analysis of the regulatory framework, as well as significant research platforms, allowed us to conclude that the principles of commercialization, digitalization, and bureaucratization prevail in the modern educational paradigm. At the same time, national priorities for building up human capital require a value-semantic foundation, which culture and educational activities are capable of providing.

Ritualzeit – Zeitwahrnehmungen und Zeitpraktiken am Hof um 1000

A notable feature of courtly life in Japan were its ritualized procedures, which not only included periodical religious ceremonies but also political activities. Time at the court was of the essence for its ceremonial routine. Yet how did courtiers perceive their daily occupations in temporal regards, and to what extent did they evaluate their personal time, while the communal time was objectively measured and pronounced? How did those involved in courtly ceremonies encounter time in terms of its availability and its symbolic qualities, e.g. bemoaning a lack of time or adjusting to auspicious as well as ominous dates? Research so far has provided a profound understanding of time calculations, the courtly ritual calendar and especially the divination office, whose task it was to determine favourable days for the various activities at the court. In contrast, concrete political and religious acts at court have received less consideration as temporal processes. In order to find some answers to the outlined questions, I will focus on rituals as a case study of conceptions and practises of time. Information on courtiers’ dealings with their individual as well as social time can be obtained from various sources, among which I examine courtly diaries, with a special focus on Fujiwara no Yukinari’s diary Gonki. The author’s statements about time will help to elucidate some temporal aspects of courtly rituals as well as to deepen our knowledge of time perceptions at the Japanese court during its heydays.