You know the feeling. Mid-sentence, the program freezes. Neither the cursor nor the mouse is in any form of motion. No browser is active. You attempt to switch to desktop. No app is opening after thousands of clicks, either. You dread the inevitable, but it has already happened anyway. So you hit the three buttons: Ctrl. Alt. Delete. (Or if you’re an Apple user, you do your version which is a Force Quit)
But there is something in your gut that tries to stop you, isn’t there? Your nerves quiver. You try to remember all your open windows (including Spotify). You remember the slides and documents still open. You ask yourself, “Did I hit ‘save’ enough? All you can do is hope you did. Was anything saved? Is anything safe? Which tabs will still come back? Which ones won’t? What if the infamous “blue screen of death” is what meets you when you restart?
You don’t really know what happens next until you restart.
The same is happening with the world.
COVID-19 forced life to a grinding halt. Industries were left hanging. Established norms and cultural traditions were challenged. Governments scrambled. Nothing seemed to work the way it was supposed to. As various countries now try to climb and claw their way out of the crisis, many experts call this next phase “the new normal.” The truth is, it is closer to a “reset moment”.
The number of infected, as of this writing, stands at 46,000+. While the recoveries now outpace the deaths, the battle to reduce infections still rages.
However, in several key cities, the Philippines has relaxed its versions of the lockdown into what is known as GCQ, or General Community Quarantine. The hope now is to pump blood back into the economy and give more people better access to basic goods.
Yet as people emerge from their homes and into the great outside, as they face commuting once again, and as they enter elevators, offices, shops, and they meet the throng of freshly-released humanity, how much of the fear remains? What are we most worried about? Is there even work waiting for some? What are we hopeful about, and what do we turn to? What has changed about the world around us? More importantly, how have we changed as we are facing this challenge?
Welcome to “The Great Reset”.
AdSpark Intelligence helps paint a picture of how this Reset Moment is happening in the Philippines. Using a combination of Social Listening, Consumption Scans, direct interviews, and contextualized third-party data, we can see how the lifting of restrictions and gradual re-entry into this new world is impacting Filipinos.
Several versions of Community Quarantine had their own rules.
Police checkpoints, mandatory face masks, temperature checks, social distancing, no going out at all for some subdivisions, quarantine passes – not to mention the procedures one does at home.
It was all in the hopes that it could buy time for a vaccine to be created, to stem the spread of the virus, and to avoid the collapse of the healthcare system. Doctors and nurses told the public, “We stayed at work for you. So please stay home for us.”
As people stayed in their homes for several weeks, there was arguably a sense of protection within one’s own castle. The thought was, if the virus was “out there” then at least we are “in here.” Now, however, with restrictions gone, the virus is still “out there.” And the castle’s drawbridge is down. The gates have no guards. One might expect some to run back out and enjoy the sunlight unabashed, but that is not the case.
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As Filipinos re-emerge into the world, what awaits us? What has changed? How have we changed? In this new edition of Thoughtsparker, we use AdSpark Intelligence to explore how Filipinos define the “new normal”. Curious? Download the full report now. |
