Social Distancing and Its Effect on Social Connectedness in the Algerian Society

Abstract

The researchers aimed through this study to identify the impact of Social Distancing on Social Connectedness in the Algerian society, where a descriptive-comparative method was used, the sample size reached 287 respondents, represents 287 family who were randomly selected from the statistical community, which consisted of parents and adult sons and daughters. The study's field were in the Chlef state, which located within 250 km west of the Algerian capital, and lasted for one month (from 15 March to 15 April 2020), the comparison was made at the level of social connectedness indicators, between the individuals who practice social distancing and individuals who didn't. The study reached the following results:

1-   Social distancing increases the daily Family-disputes by 70.05%, and it multiply eight times for individuals practicing the social distancing more than individuals who don't.  And 80.91% of the population practicing the social distancing has daily family-disputes. While 71.73% of the population who didn't Practice the social distancing didn't ever face any family-dispute.

2-   The daily domestic-violence of individuals who practice social distancing is three times more than those who don't. So 52.28% of the population who practice social distancing, has daily cases of domestic-violence. While only 15.21% of the population who didn't practice social distancing had daily cases of domestic-violence.

3-   Individuals who didn't practice social distancing visits their neighbors two times more than those who did practice social distancing.

4-            Individuals who practice social distancing made a daily inter-family phone-calls almost three times less than who didn't practice social distancing