Atomization of living space and diffusion of labor activity in the context of coronacrisis: manifestations, consequences and vectors of overcoming

Abstract

The symbiosis of new opportunities caused by the breakthrough technologies of the digital age (“big bang-1”) and new challenges and threats caused by sanitary and epidemiological requirements of the coronavirus pandemic (“big bang-2”) leads to a reduction in the living space of an economically active person. The ability to work remotely using information and communication systems (voluntary isolation), on the one hand, and quarantine restrictions (forced isolation), on the other, lead to atomization of a person. At the same time, the time boundaries between work and leisure are being erased, leisure acquires signs of precariousness, a convergence of work and leisure takes place. The relevance of this study is due to the need for a renewed awareness of what kind of format of labor activity will be there in the pandemic and post-pandemic era. Scientific and practical significance of the study is to determine restoration vectors of humancentered, socially acceptable living space of a man of labor, which will help overcome coronacrisis in the social and labor sphere. The main result of the study is the author’s mental model of metamorphoses of labor activity as a component of the new (ab)normality of pandemic and post-pandemic eras. The research subject is the theoretical and applied principles of atomization of the living space of economically active people and the diffusion of labor under the influence of new opportunities and constraints produced by the digital economy and the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. The methodological basis for achieving the set goal is a systematic approach that allows avoiding the fragmentary nature of research, one-sided judgments and conclusions in the study of the interrelated phenomena of living space atomization and labor activity diffusion. The aim of the study is to form scientific ideas about transformations taking place in the field of labor and leisure in the digital age under the influence of coronacrisis. It is proved that the coronacrisis gives rise to a new type of person – an atomized one, which is being increasingly exposed to «negative» individualism influence. The study outlines the contours of the mental model of the organization of work activity in the post-COVID period based on overcoming «negative» individualism, the emergence of a new philosophy of the time, and the formation of an updated concept of leisure culture. Also, the necessity of developing a consolidated multilevel model of social and labor relations in the new socio-economic reality and scientific and applied scenario of its implementation in the system of social and labor development of Ukrainian society is substantiated.