Social connectedness at the playground before and after COVID-19 school closure

Abstract

Social connectedness at school is crucial to children's development, yet very little is known about the way it has been affected by school closures during COVID-19 pandemic. We compared pre-post lockdown levels of social connectedness at a school playground in forty-three primary school-aged children, using wearable sensors, observations, peer nominations and self-reports. Upon school reopening, findings from sensors and peer nominations indicated increases in children's interaction time, network diversity and network centrality. Group observations indicated a decrease in no-play social interactions and an increase in children's involvement in social play. Explorative analyses did not reveal relations between changes in peer connectedness and pre-lockdown levels of peer connectedness or social contact during the lockdown period. Findings pointed at the role of recess in contributing to children's social well-being and the importance of attending to their social needs upon reopening.

Keywords: COVID-19; Children; Playground; Sensors; Social connectedness.

Fig. 1

Social networks at the playground before and after lockdown, based on sensor data. T1 = before the lockdown; T2 = after the lockdown; Distance between every pair of nodes (children) and the thickness of the edge between the nodes are based on the percentage of time these two children were interacting with each other, out of the total time they were both detected at the same time points during recess. The more time they spent together the thicker the edge between the nodes is and the more closely the nodes are positioned. The size of the node is based on the number of different partners the child interacted with, with larger size indicating a broader variety of interaction partners.

Fig. 2

Social network based on received peer nominations for playground playmates before and after lockdown. T1 = before the lockdown; T2 = after the lockdown. Distance between every pair of nodes (children) is based on received in-degree nominations for playground mates, weighted by mutual nominations. The direction of the nomination is indicated by an arrow. The size of the node is based on the number of nominations each child received, with larger size indicating a larger number of nominations received.