The next step: the trends we can use from the wildest stretch in American history
The Skyline College Campus has been closed to students since March 12, 2020.
By Steven Rissotto Staff Contributor
@StevenRissotto
It feels almost as if the world has faced the maximum number of hurdles throughout the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. The rapidly-spreading virus was quick to change the everyday routines that millions of people had long since established. To put it simply, there was adjusting that had to be done to survive a situation that not even the most intelligent people had on their bingo card. Adjusting takes time — like a child moving to a different school, an anxious young adult checking into their first job, or even overcoming the enormous grief of losing a loved one. The argument could be made that there hasn’t ever been an excess of speedy and efficient adjustments like the ones that were made in the United States when the invisible enemy first silently struck the country in March 2020. A lot has changed since then. A lot of the initial fear has transformed into motivation to return to the normalcy everyone desperately craves. Some positive news is that many of the abbreviated tools utilized during the pandemic are likely to become mainstays in rebranded routines when Americans cross the finish line of a very strange stretch — one that will surely be a highlighted topic in the next generation of high school history textbooks. Those trends that were introduced range from permanent ideas to temporary precautions, but all of them have the potential to stay long after the pandemic ends. Here are just a few we’ve experienced and will possibly see more of: Movie theaters and online streaming It’s a popular tradition: popcorn, friends, candy, and sitting back to watch the hottest new movie in theaters. The soothing experience of sitting before the big screen has always been a mainstay,
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but it was already declining in popularity even before theaters were shut down due to the pandemic. The price of concessions has become a burden on families, especially now during the economic rebuild. Streaming platforms such as Netflix, Hulu, Peacock, and Disney+ have stolen the spotlight, and now thousands of movies and TV shows are streamed — an amount that significantly rose during the pandemic. Movies that would usually have their debut in the theaters debuted online through these streaming sites instead, while theaters across the country sat in the dust, collecting cobwebs. The downside was that AMC Theatres only narrowly escaped bankruptcy. The upside? “As much as I would have loved to watch them in theaters to get the full experience, streaming at home was fun too,” said Caitlin Collantes, a student at Skyline College. “Curling up for family movie night on the couch, or even by myself with a bag of hot Cheetos in bed, was something I really didn’t do before the pandemic, but has now become one of my regular sources of selfcare.”
Distance learning Arguably the largest adjustment for the majority of students across the country during the pandemic has been distance learning. As schools shut down to prevent the spread of the virus, districts and teachers scrambled to find a way to provide their students with fresh new content so that they don’t fall behind. As expected, a wide variety of learning characteristics are found among students. A certain portion of students thrive on friends around them with hands-on learning experience. Another portion could be content working independently through a screen, even if that meant less time around their friends. Every student is different, and each one would give a different answer if asked how Volume 6
