Independent Research on Correlation of COVID-19 to Age Groups in Guiyang

After sending out a questionnaire about people’s thoughts on COVID-19, I started to conduct interviews with the participants in person to dig deeper into their feelings and responses. Research participants were recruited voluntarily from my mother’s kindergarten in Guiyang, China. The participants included teachers, school principals, security guards, and janitors in the age group of 17-50. Surprisingly, I found that people from different age groups had completely different answers to various questions.

Firstly, from the age group of 17-25, most people had experienced anxiety and fear during the outbreak of COVID-19. Since they are younger, most of their current event knowledge comes from surfing the internet. On the internet, there are all kinds of terrible news and comments presented to viewers. When these young adults see the growing numbers and horrifying news about COVID-19, they worry about the virus affecting them and their families. Spending time self-quarantined at home, some chose to read books, prepare for tests, make DIY handcrafts, play games, watch TV, and spend time with their family. Although they indicated on the survey on how they spend their time during quarantine, from speaking to them, I realized how anxious and worried they were during the worst time of the outbreak of COVID-19. However, I was also happy to see that each of them could find something to do during the outbreak and all of them were willing to cooperate with the government to protect themselves and their family.

From the age group of 25-35, people’s emotions and feelings, compared to the young adults, were much alleviated and calm. At home, they spent more time with their kids over anything. I saw most of them as typical parents and employees. Some of them were less worried about COVID-19, while others did not have much feeling towards it. These participants were more concerned about their salary and job stability because of their responsibility to take care of their families. Therefore, their focus was mainly on family and jobs more than COVID-19.

Last, from the age group of 35-50, they had little or no strong thoughts about COVID-19. They had less exposure to current information and news about the pandemic or how terrifying it is since COVID-19 did not significantly affect my hometown. They did not have much awareness of the illness though they still acted on the government’s request and procedures. The differences across generations are clearly shown through this research conducted from different age groups. Withal, the focus and attitude of their lives and thoughts on the global pandemic are vastly different.