PANDEMİNİN SOSYAL ETKİLERİ VE DEĞİŞEN GÜNDELİK HAYAT TRABZON KENTİNİN KOVİD-19 DENEYİMİ
SOCIAL IMPACTS OF THE PANDEMIC AND CHANGING DAILY LIFE: TRABZON CITY’S COVID-19 EXPERIENCE

Summary/Abstract: The subject of this study is to examine how the COVID-19 epidemic is experienced by people living in the city of Trabzon. The COVID-19 epidemic is a pandemic that affects the whole world. The pandemic, which means that epidemic diseases are effective in large geographies, has affected Turkey as well as the world and infected thousands of people. Trabzon, one of the metropolitan cities in the North Eastern Region of Turkey, is a city where the effects of the pandemic are greatly experienced due to the number of cases being above Turkey’s average at certain periods. In sociological thought, functionalism and symbolic interactionism theories focus on the experience of illness and conceptualize illness as a lived experience. Accordingly, the main theoretical perspective of the study is functionalist theory. In the study, the COVID-19 epidemic was considered as a lived experience. Illness experience includes all actions and emotions experienced and performed during the period from the onset of disease symptoms to recovery, rehabilitation or death. In this study, a functionalist perspective was adopted and the transformation caused by the pandemic in the social system as a risk was discussed and the effects of the transformation were problematized through the experiences of people living in Trabzon. In this context, the aim of the study is to examine the reactions of the system to restore harmony and balance against the pandemic that threatens the social system, through the experiences of individuals. The study was designed as survey research and the data was obtained by survey technique. Questionnaire; It consists of questions covering themes such as demographic information, economic situation, social life, thoughts about the future, causes of the pandemic and ways to protect it, government support during the pandemic and distance education. The sample of the research consists of 391 adults (182 women and 209 men) living in Trabzon (rural and city center). The data obtained from the study were analyzed through the SPSS program. As a result, the pandemic is a risk for the social system, and the risk has caused dysfunctions in the social system. Against this, the institutional structure (especially the health institution) has protected itself with practices such as "HES code" and "cleaning, mask, distance" discourse in the context of the new normal, in order to ensure harmony and balance against risk. As a result of the research, 30.9% of the participants said that they attended social events less, 29.9% said that the time they spent at home increased, and 53.1% said that social interaction was limited during the epidemic. Therefore, in the new normal order, precautions were taken against the risk of contamination by limiting contact and interaction, and the health institution emphasized the importance of individual responsibilities (paying attention to distance, getting vaccinated and using a mask, etc.). In this context, as a result of the research, 78.7% of the participants stated that they would be vaccinated.

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