The outbreak of the coronavirus has made people in Kent look at their lives and forced them to adapt.

Reporter Ellis Stephenson spoke to University of Kent emeritus professor Richard Scase about the challenges faced by people working, educating and still living at home.

These are strange times, there is no getting away from that.

I wanted to find out how the government-mandated lockdown is impacting the lives of people who would normally be going out all the time.

Who better to speak to than Professor Scase, a font of knowledge on social and economic trends?

From his home study in Canterbury, he spoke to me on a typical morning just as he started work.

He is coping by juggling duties with a long walk and watching films during his down time.

"I have the sort of job where I can work from home because I do a lot of writing and research," he said.

But even he has felt the affects of the lockdown: "A lot of talks I was booked in to do have been postponed or cancelled."

After lunch he tends to go for a 7km walk and wind down in the evening by watching crime thrillers.

"As humans, we're motivated by stimuli, life is very boring when you don't have that."

After chats with colleagues in our virtual newsroom, I asked why people are missing the monotony of small tasks such as going shopping, comuting and filling up at the petrol station.

"I think the common denominator in the petrol station or going to the supermarket is the interaction and communication with different people," said Prof Scase.

"As humans, we're motivated by stimuli, life is very boring when you don't have that.

"We do like having a bit of variety in our lives. Just having the diversity very often brings us much greater pleasure than we assume.

"What I'm missing most of all is football. It really does have an impact on the routine of my life.

"Thursday and Friday I'm thinking about Saturday's game and on Sunday and Monday there might be matches as well.

"I surprised myself with this, how significant it is in terms of my morale and motivation. I'm a season ticket holder at Norwich City where I was brought up.

"What's most difficult to handle is the uncertainty. People can put up with something if it requires sacrifice but it's not knowing what's going to happen which causes great concern.

"That's why people complain if trains and planes are cancelled and there's no information. People don't know how long it's going to go on for.

"In every society you have people who will listen to the experts and those who won't change their behaviour until someone close to them, or themselves, gets the virus. They will only learn through experiencing something."

"It creates huge pressures on parents when children are at home."

Talking about what trends he is expecting with people staying at home more, Prof Scase added: "We do have data which is showing an increase in domestic abuse, which shows not everyone is happy at home.

"We also see kids are staying at home where the schools are closed. In Sweden, they have kept primary schools open because children require constant supervision and attention.

"It creates huge pressures on parents when children are at home.

"Another factor is families were in routines before this and now they find themselves together for the whole time, probably for the first time ever, and they ask themselves questions about relationships which they've never asked themselves before.

"It's like the spike in divorces you see in January after people spend too much time together at Christmas."

When this is all over, how likely is it things will snap back to the way they were?

"We won't be going back to normal after this in many ways," Prof Scase said.

"More people have built into the habit now of running and doing more walking, lots of people are out running and jogging. I think people realise they don't have to drink as much.

"We've saved a huge amount of money. I think people realise, in terms of budgets when they feel hard up, they're spending on unnecessary things and can save by changing habits in minor ways.

"I hope people do continue to work from home to a certain extent because it's a lower company cost and there are fewer emissions and there is less congestion.

"I think there's going to be a whole change in the habits and relationship between home and work.

"Over the years, parents have regarded responsibility of education as that of a teacher and I think there's going to be a trend now for parents to take back a greater responsibility of helping kids to read and write.

"This does offer an experiment in terms of new ways of life and new policies.

"It'd be interesting to see when we've got data in terms of psychological and sociological economic aspects work from home, travelling data, whether it'll feed into policies and I think they'll have a positive knock-on in terms of the government green agenda.

"Coronavirus could be the wake-up call that we need to realise the climate change emergency."

"Technology wasn't the barrier but the attitude of bosses."

He is also expecting more businesses to look at the possibility of staff members setting up work stations at home, if they are able to.

"Working from home has been a possibility since 2000 at least.

"Technology wasn't the barrier but the attitude of bosses which meant they may not have entirely trusted their staff.

"This situation has forced them to think about working from home and they've realised, at long last, they can be as productive as they are at work.

"A lot of time gets wasted at offices. Chatting over the water fountain, being online when you shouldn't be.

"I think a lot of people are much more productive at home because they just get on with it.

"People will always go to work in an office but I expect the ratio between home and office working will significantly change now.

"I think there'll be a sigh of relief after people come back to work from furlough.

"Work is not just a form of drudgery, it's a place for exercising creativity. Also, working from home will make a lot of people realise they can do it by themselves and become freelancers.

Lockdown does seem to be taking its toll on everyday interactions, he added.

"This seems to be making us suspicious of others. It's interesting how people are managing to pass by on the other side of the road because on the face of it, it seems incredibly rude.

"My strategy is to give a nod and a smile. It's interesting how people respond to that.

"It's led to a redefinition of personal space. We have different notions of personal space for example, I don't like it when people stand close to me in queues normally.

"In Sweden, they really do keep out of the way of each other but Italians are always close to one another. In England, we come in between and I never like shaking hands."

"This is an opportunity for people to review what's important to them."

Offering some tips on how to deal with the future of lockdown, he added: "People can take on projects for anything like getting the bedroom, but the major one is really to respect the rules and not to be clever and have friends around. This is serious stuff.

"The government wouldn't harm the economy so deliberately if it wasn't for a really serious issue and we have to respect that.

"In terms of managing it, it would help if we could have some detail on how long is left but we don't know what the health experts will tell us.

"This is an opportunity for people to review what's important to them in their lives and how priorities have changed.

"That's relevant to families who've lost elderly people. This is an illness where there are a lot of cases for people over the age of 70."

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