Not going out is the “new normal” post-Covid, according to a new study.
Compared with just before the pandemic, researchers found that people are spending nearly an hour less a day doing activities outside the home.
The trend is a lasting consequence of the pandemic, say scientists.
The study reveals an overall drop since 2019 of around 51 minutes in the daily time spent on out-of-home activities, as well as an almost 12-minute reduction in time spent on daily travel such as driving or taking public transport.
The analysis, based on a survey of 34,000 Americans, found a trend of less and less out-of-home time, stretching back to at least 2003.
But Covid and its aftermath have “dramatically” increased the shift into the home, according to the research team from the University of California, Los Angeles, (UCLA) and Clemson University, South Carolina.
They say the shift towards “going nowhere fast” will affect people and society on many levels.
The research team, who are urban planners, argue that less leaving home calls for a rethink of many planning and transport policies.
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Their recommendations include repurposing office and retail units given the increase in working and shopping from home.
The team says restrictions on converting commercial buildings to housing should also be relaxed, and curb space for delivery vehicles should increase given the rise in online shopping.
Lead author Professor Eric Morris, of Clemson University, said: “In a world where cities cannot rely on captive office workers and must work to attract residents, workers, and customers, local officials might seek to invest more heavily in their remaining strengths.
“These include opportunities for recreation, entertainment, culture, arts, and more.
“Central cities might shift toward becoming centers of consumption more than production.”
He said, for example, that city centers could capitalize on their strengths by creating dense, multi-unit housing often favored by younger residents and others who prefer more urban lifestyles.
Prof Morris says such changes might also benefit lower-income households and society more generally by lowering both housing and transportation costs.
The researchers say that “going nowhere faster” may have some benefits, such as less time spent traveling, which may reduce fuel use and emissions and save people valuable time and money.
But more staying in might have downsides such as social isolation and loneliness.
The research team found that improvements in information technology, and the fact that people learned to use IT in new ways during the pandemic, was one of the “key drivers” behind the trend.
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The researchers looked at both work and leisure habits using data from the American Time Use Survey (ATUS), an annual review of how Americans spend their time.
They assessed the years before, during, and after the pandemic, namely 2019, 2021, 2022 and 2023. The year 2020 was excluded because it was not completely affected by the pandemic and because data gathering was halted at the height of the outbreak.
The study examined the behavior of people aged 17 and over.
The team grouped time use into 16 activities in the home including sleep, exercise, work, and using IT, plus 12 out-of-home activities such as arts and sporting events, shopping, work, and religious observance.
They also analyzed travel by car, walking, and public transport.
The findings, published in the Journal of the American Planning Association, showed that the time spent on eight of the 12 out-of-home activities fell from 2019 to 2021, while 11 of the 16 in-home activities increased.
The average time for out-of-home activities fell from 334 minutes per day in 2019 to 271 in 2021 – from around 5.5 hours per day out-of-home to 4.5 hours.
The researchers say that working from home explains part of the trend, but there were large reductions in other out-of-home time uses as well.
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A similar trend was seen in travel, with participants spending an estimated 13 fewer minutes a day in cars and other forms of transport.
The researchers said that the downward trend could not be attributed solely to the reductions in the daily commute during COVID-19.
The amount of time spent away from home has only slightly recovered post-pandemic, rebounding by just 11 minutes from 2021 to 2023, from 270 minutes to 281 – still a reduction of 53 minutes in time away from home since 2019.
All out-of-home time, all forms of travel, and seven out-of-home activities remained notably lower in 2023 than in 2019, while eight in-home activities remained higher.
The trend towards staying home seems to be holding post-pandemic, with out-of-home time in 2023 virtually unchanged from 2022.
Television watching did not increase apart from in the early peaks of the pandemic while more exercise activities are now being done at home, most likely because people bought in-home gym equipment.
The research team says that the “retreat into the home” had been ongoing for at least 16 years leading up to the pandemic.
An earlier study they conducted showed that out-of-home activity among adults decreased by about 1.8 minutes a day per year from 2003 to 2019
But the reduction since the pandemic was “much greater” than would be suggested by the previous trend.
