Nishiyama 1

Regina Nishiyama

English 1302

Mr. W Nolen

13 February 2022

Isolation Affecting Productivity

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the lives of people all over the world in many

negative ways. Besides physical, measurable data on how COVID-19 affects health, researchers

are still trying to figure out the mental aspect of COVID. A major attribute of this pandemic and

the mental health affects is the time people have spent in isolation. Because the virus spread so

easily and the effects of catching it were wildly differing and unknown, the only way we could

stop the spread was by hiding in our homes and staying as far away from the world as we could.

People started to work from home, learn at home, exercise at home, and much more causing a

lack of social interaction and increasing feelings of loneliness. Isolation in itself comes with

negative effects to mental health and mixing the effects of isolation with a new and unknown

virus has been a terrain many people are still navigating. Feeling alone is very detrimental on a

person’s health, so it is important to figure out just how it affects ones mental health, and ways to

help reduce feelings of loneliness. This paper aims to understand how productivity is affected

through isolation; using two peer-reviewed sources to aid in understanding the results of this

study, as well as an at home experiment regarding a subjects ability to be productive outside of

isolation, drastically changing once put into isolation, this paper will discuss the feelings of

loneliness, depression, and overwhelm that come with isolation.

Many people have gone from living their regular day to day lives, and then instantly

having to stay home and stay put because they contracted COVID-19. This is exactly how the
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experiment started with my subject. They spent three days at school, practice, and work going

through their daily routine and getting their work done. After those three days the subject

contracted covid, and had to be put into isolation. Because the subject lives at home with their

family who did not contract the virus, they were completely isolated and spent ten days in their

room. To avoid contact with anyone and to keep them as isolated as possible, food and other

necessities were delivered to their door. Their entire routine was affected and they had to figure

out how to live their life while quarantined in a small room with little to no outlets to help them

relieve the stress of the drastic change.

Using the screen time average from a span of six days, provided from an iPhone, the

number of hours spent on the phone are able to show how productive the subject was that day. If

the screen time was high, the subject spent less time being productive and more time using the

iPhone for entertainment. Three days of screen time where the subject was not in isolation due to

COVID-19 were compared to three days of screen time where the subject was in isolation.

Productivity was also measured by the amount of homework or time studying the subject was

able to do by the end of the day.

On the first non-isolated day the subject accumulated a total of eight hours and twenty-

five minutes of screen time and was able to finish reading two articles and one assignment for

two different classes. On the second non-isolated day, the subject spent seven hours and thirty-

four minutes on their phone and was able to finish three assignments for two different classes.

On the third non-isolated day, the subject recorded five hours and thirty-six minutes of screen

time and finished one quiz and read one two chapters for two different classes.

After these three days, the subject was put into isolation due to COVID-19, and

noticeably their screen time went up and productivity went down due to the negative effects of
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the isolation. On the first isolated day, the subject accumulated fifteen hours and fifty-seven

minutes of screen time, almost twice the time compared to the first non-isolated day. The subject

also reported having done no homework an any time off of social media was spent sleeping. On

the second isolated day, the subject spent eighteen hours and fifty-two minutes on their phone

and still made no improvement on studying on homework. No homework assignments had been

done in the span of these two days as well as no advances on the study material the subject was

given for an exam. On the third isolated day, the subject recorded seventeen hours and five

minutes of screen time and only completed one assignment for one class which took

approximately 30 minutes out of their entire day. All in all, one can clearly see that while the

subject was in isolation, they doubled their screen time and drastically dropped their

productivity.

Noticeably, the data collected from the first three days to the last three days, doubles

denoting less productivity. The numbers collected allow for a simple conclusion: isolation has a

negative effect on productivity. According to the subject, being in the same environment for

relaxation and work made them feel like they were “never able to walk away to relax and forget

about work” in order to have motivation to do their work. The subject also stated that “isolation

kept [them] feeling overwhelmed and unmotivated to advance on work.” The subject also shared

that “spending time on [their] phone allowed them to feel less isolated from everyone, and so

[they] continued to spend more time on it in order to feel less alone.” The following emotional

data accounts for why the screen time doubled and emphasizes the negative effects of isolation

on productivity. Having this qualitative data helps us better connect why the subject was unable

to finish any of their homework while in isolation. Because they were stuck in one room with no
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outlets, they were unable to release their negative emotions, blocking them from having a free

mind to do their homework with.

Feelings of depression and anxiety are some of the most common mental health

symptoms that come with covid. This phenomena of the mental side effects of a physical disease

are studied by Seckin Senisik et al. in their article titled “The Effect of Isolation on Athletes’

Mental Health During the Covid-19 Pandemic” Their study discusses how athletes go from

living a busy life, and their whole routine changes due to isolation causing negative mental

health. Sensik et al. state that “the isolation period may cause the occurrence of psychological

effects such as depression and anxiety by leading to changes in people’s living conditions, a

decrease in social and physical contact, and separation from their loved ones” (Sensik et al. 187).

This information gives the study above more background as to why the subject was unable to be

productive during their time in quarantine. Sensik says that because a person is removed from

their usual living conditions, psychological illnesses rise, making it harder for the person to be

productive.

While the research aforementioned, was conducted on only one subject, Toscano and

Zappala were able to conduct research measuring remote work satisfaction during the COVID-19

pandemic on a larger scale of people in their article titled “Social Isolation and Stress as

Predictors of Productivity Perception and Remote Work Satisfaction During the COVID-19

Pandemic: The Role of Concern about the Birus in Moderated Double Mediation.” They used a

15 question 5-point Likert scale questionnaire on a group of 265 people ranging from age and

gender, to assess the feelings people had while working from home. According to the article,

“results show that social isolation is negatively related to remote work satisfaction” (Toscano

and Zappala, 10). They were able to back this conclusion up with a line graph showing a
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negative correlation between remote work satisfaction and social isolation (Toscano and

Zappala, 9). This information is relevant because it highlights the negative effects the COVID-19

isolation had on the productivity of those who were navigating working from home.

The two different experiments lead readers to the same conclusion: isolation due to

COVID-19 has negative effects on productivity. Although the first experiment was simpler and

on a smaller scale, the results still showed a decrease in productivity during isolation. The second

experiment was able to find that isolation does decrease productivity, but the more a subject is

worried about COVID-19, the more it affects their productivity and stress levels. Although a

similar larger scale experiment has been done, this experiment is able to add the effects of screen

time reducing the feeling of isolation while negatively affecting productivity. This is substantial

because although the subject was able to find a way to decrease the negative effects isolation has

on mental health, such as feelings of loneliness, the loss of productivity poses a new problem:

how to feel less isolated while still being productive.

All in all, the recent pandemic has shown the world how codependent we are. The need

for isolation has given rise to feelings of loneliness, depression, and anxiety. This newfound

phenomenon, was briefly tested in an at home experiment involving a student’s productivity

being measure while in and out of isolation. The findings of this study — isolation causing

stress, depression, and overwhelmingness — are backed up by Sensik et al. study when

discussing the psychological effects of isolation. This study helps put more meaning to the

findings of the at home experiment, along with Toscano and Zappala's article. Toscano and

Zappala were able to recreate the first experiment at a larger scale, allowing for bigger and more

quantifiable trends to be found on how isolation affects productivity. One would assume that

removing distractions and placing someone in isolation would benefit them and help them
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improve productivity, but because of the psychological factors, too much time in isolation is not

good for a person's mental health. As a society who is still battling with the effects of the

pandemic, we should be finding ways to combat these negative mental effects of isolation in

order to have a more productive and mentally healthy society in the case of another pandemic.
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Work Cited

Şenışık, Seçkin, et al. “The Effect of Isolation on Athletes' Mental Health during the COVID-19

Pandemic.” Taylor & Francis, The Physician and Sportsmedicine , 4 Aug. 2020,

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00913847.2020.1807297.

Toscano, Ferdinando, and Salvatore Zappalà. “Social Isolation and Stress as Predictors of

Productivity Perception and Remote Work Satisfaction during the COVID-19

Pandemic: The Role of Concern about the Virus in a Moderated Double

Mediation.” MDPI, Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute, 24 Nov. 2020,

https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/23/9804.