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

Adva Eichengreen; Yung-Ting Tsou; Maedeh Nasri; Lisa-Maria van Klaveren; Boya Li; Alexander Koutamanis; Mitra Baratchi; Els Blijd-Hoogewys; Joost Kok; Carolien Rieffe

doi:10.1016/j.appdev.2023.101562

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

J Appl Dev Psychol. 2023 Jul-Aug:87:101562. doi: 10.1016/j.appdev.2023.101562. Epub 2023 Jun 28.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology, Institute of Psychology, Leiden University, Leiden, the Netherlands.
² Institute for Education and Training, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
³ Department of Management in the Built environment, Delft University of Technology, Delft, the Netherlands.
⁴ Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science, Leiden University, Leiden, the Netherlands.
⁵ INTER-PSY, Autism Team, Groningen, the Netherlands.
⁶ Department of Clinical and Developmental Psychology, Faculty of Behavioral and Social Sciences, University of Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands.
⁷ Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Twente, Enschede, the Netherlands.
⁸ Department of Human Media Interaction, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Twente, Enschede, the Netherlands.
⁹ Department of Psychology and Human Development, Institute of Education, University College London, London, UK.

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.