ORBIT REPORT
THE POST-PANDEMIC WORLD ACCORDING TO SOCIAL MEDIA
july 2020
by
WHAT WILL BRAZILIANS DO ONCE THE QUARANTINE IS OVER?
To answer this question, we analyzed 3,821 comments from Brazilians made on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, between March 10 and June 27 (2020), which mentioned the phrase "When the quarantine is over."
The results revealed different forms of anxiety that were growing amongst Brazilians during their period of social isolation. These anxieties were represented by desires such as the ones to: thank God once the pandemic is over, visit religious places and temples, meet family and friends, leave the house, drink, party and go to the beach.
Throughout this study, we also investigated how these desires and expectations shifted as the Pandemic progressed and cities extended the official quarantine periods for the second time, in mid-April.
The main findings of this study are presented in the interactive charts below, and Orbit invites you to interact with them.
We Welcome You!
WHEN THE QUARANTINE IS OVER I WILL...
Our first chart maps out the desires individuals most mentioned on Social Media, as well as how these desires evolved through time (from March 10 onwards).
Throughout the period of social isolation, the evolution of some desires were particularly insightful, as follows:
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Religious and spiritual desires underwent rapid growth: The desire to "Thank God" and "Go to Church" grew in April, when the real impacts of the new coronavirus were still hard to predict, even by the international scientific community;
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The desires to "Meet Family Members" and "Hug/Kiss Someone" became less prominent after the second month of quarantine;
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Desires to "Leave the House" and "Drink" grew in the middle of the quarantine, but then fell when measures to ease the quarantine started being adopted by large Brazilian cities.
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Desires such as "Going to Concerts,", "Going to Restaurants," "Getting a Tattoo" and "Going to the Beach" started to grow in May, when the quarantine had already lasted 2 months.
Press Play on the chart below to see the evolution of these desires:
WHEN THE QUARANTINE IS EXTENDED, THERE IS A GROWTH IN DESIRES LINKED TO RELIGION, MEETING FRIENDS AND GOING TO CONCERTS. THE DISIRE TO MEET FAMILY MEMBERS, ON THE OTHER HAND, DECREASES.
In the charts below, we showcase the desires that were most mentioned by Brazilians before and after 22 April 2020, when the official quarantine was extended for the second time in the State of São Paulo.
We chose that date since that was the day when the quarantine was prolonged in Brazil's largest state, and people started reacting to the notion that they would be isolated for more time than they had previously thought.
The main highlight is that, until April 22, the largest desire amongst Brazilians was to "Be with Other People," such as by "Meeting Family" or "Kissing/Hugging Someone."
After April 22, a series of other desires became more prominent, especially those related to "Religion/Spirituality," such as the desire to "Pray" and "Go to Church."
Analyzing the comments, one hypothesis for the growth of religious desires is due to fears about the unpredictable consequences of the pandemic, which pervaded Brazilians in mid-April and May, a period in which the country also went through its first exchange in the Ministry of Health with the departure of Former Minister Luiz Henrique Mandetta, on April 16.
The desire to meet family members, in turn, decreased, being surpassed by the desire to meet friends. This happened when official statistics showed that the adhesion to social isolation in the main cities of Brazil started to decrease (at the end of May and throughout June). Analyzing the comments, one hypothesis for this shift in desires is that people had been gradually meeting their closest family members as they eased their social isolation restrictions, whilst at the same time longing for friends and the habits they shared with them (partying, going out, going to bars/concerts, etc.), especially because these establishments/events remained closed due to the quarantine.
The next graph shows the desires that grew and decreased the most, in percentage points, before and after April 22, explaining the hypotheses raised in the analysis of the previous graph.
Observing the comments, religious desires would have grown out of fear of the consequences of the crisis, which became less aaaaaaa
predictable after 1 month of quarantine.
The longing for family members, in turn, gave way to longing for friends in mid-May and June, when adherence to isolation decreased in main Brazilian cities and people began to fulfil their most urgent wishes to see their family members.
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN DESIRES: PEOPLE WHO WANT TO "PRAY" ALSO WANT TO "WORK" AND "EVOLVE AS INDIVIDUALS". PEOPLE WHO WANT TO "PARTY" ALSO WANT TO "GO OUT" AND "SPEND".
THE DESIRE TO BE WITH OTHERS EXISTS WITHIN BOTH GROUPS.
The next graphs analyse the relationships between desires, showing which desires were expressed by the same group of people.
In these two graphs, the bubbles represent the most mentioned desires on social media (the larger the bubble, the more recurrent the desire). The novelty here, however, is in the relationship between the bubbles: the thicker the line between the bubbles, the more often those desires were expressed by the same group of people. This creates clusters of common desires shared by the same group of people (ex: When the quarantine is over, people who want to do x also want to do y).
This display allows us observe two main clusters of desires.
The first, from the center of the graph until the bubble "Work", shows that many people who intend to "Pray" also want to "Work", "Leave the House" and "Evolve as Individuals".
On the opposite side of the graph, another cluster indicates that many people who want to "Party" also want to "Go Out" and "Spend".
"Being with Others", in turn, ends up representing a central group of desires mentioned by these two clusters, which will be better understood in the following graph.
"BEING WITH OTHERS": PEOPLE WHO "PARTY" WANT TO "MEET FRIENDS", PEOPLE WHO "PRAY" WANT TO "MEET FAMILY MEMBERS".
The next graph breaks down each desire into colour-coded subcategories, breaking down the relationship between desires even further.
This display allowed us to observe that the desire to "Be with Others" (in green) is divided into the desire to be with "family members" (for the religious group), and the desire to be with "friends" (for the party group).
Another finding is that the religious group is the one who expressed the desire to undertake deeper changes in their post-pandemic life, such as looking for a job, working, evolving as individuals and achieving personal goals. The party-oriented group, on the other hand, expressed more immediate desires, such as going to bars, restaurants, cinemas, shows, changing the way they look and getting a tattoo/piercing. You can access all comments that guided this analysis by clicking on the bubbles and the "comments" button in the chart below.
The last graph of this study presents these same relations between desires in a two-dimensional way, now showcasing the number of times that two different desires were expressed by the same people.
These numbers are represented by the lines that connect the desires below, and to view them you can hover over the lines or click on them to fix them on the graph.
We wish you a great experience with the data!
