More than a year later (i.e., May 2021), long-term unemployment numbers remained considerably higher (+166.8%) than pre-pandemic levels (i.e., February 2020). Additionally, stay-at-home orders (i.e., only leaving the home for essential purposes) were enacted, resulting in drastic changes to work (e.g., working from home, temporary loss of employment) and/or school (e.g., homeschooling, virtual learning) for many Canadians. Within Canada, a series of federal, provincial, territorial, and municipal preventative measures, including physical distancing and widespread closures of borders, schools, and businesses were implemented in mid-March (13th–20th) 2020. Given that countries varied greatly in their initial efforts to control the spread of COVID-19, it is important to understand the impacts such efforts have had of their respective population, particularly should additional lockdowns and stay-at-home measures be invoked or, at minimum, to provide valuable information and direction in case of future pandemics. As a result, individuals from across the world were forced to deal with unprecedented changes to their work, education, travel, and leisure behaviours. Examples of some of the most stringent control measures include widespread closures of all non-essential businesses and schools, cancellation of public events, restrictions for in-person gatherings, closure of public transit, and stay-at-home orders with minimal exceptions (only leaving the home for essential purposes, such as groceries). The severity of preventative measures varied considerably by country (and region to region within some countries). By the end of March 2020, more than 100 countries (constituting more than half the worldwide population) invoked social distancing orders to limit the spread of COVID-19. On 11 March 2020, the World Health Organization declared the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), transmitted through respiratory droplets, a global pandemic. Future studies with larger sample sizes and from other countries examining recreational screen time behaviours longitudinally over the pandemic are still needed to allow for greater generalizability. Purpose: Examine how total and specific (i.e., watching television, using social media, going on the Internet, playing video games, and engaging in virtual social connection) recreational screen time behaviours changed throughout the first six months of the COVID-19 pandemic, in comparison to pre-pandemic levels (2) Methods: Sixty four Canadians (mostly Caucasian, female, age range = 21–77 years) completed monthly surveys from April to September of 2020 (3) Results: A one-way repeated measures analysis of variance (RM-ANOVA) and subsequent post hoc analysis revealed that total recreational screen time was statistically higher in late March/April (292.5 min/day ± 143.0) and into May, compared to pre-COVID-19 (187.8 min/day ± 118.3), before declining in subsequent months (4) Conclusions: Generally, specific recreational screen time behaviours, such as time spent watching television, followed the same trend. (1) Background: The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has caused disruptions in the daily lives of individuals in Canada.
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