Why crowds feel harder to handle after COVID | with Jenny Day

In this bonus episode of Let’s Talk Health, host Natalie Cook speaks with psychology learning facilitator Jenny Day about how COVID-19 has reshaped our sense of personal space. While crowded trains and busy offices once felt normal, the pandemic triggered a global shift in how close we’re comfortable getting to others. Jenny explains why personal space boundaries expanded, how pathogen awareness influences our reactions, and why many people still instinctively step back in public settings.

Together, they explore the psychological impact of lockdowns, the role of threat perception, and how factors like climate, culture and disease history shape comfort zones around the world. It’s a fascinating look at how our ancient survival instincts collided with a modern pandemic - and why closeness still feels different today.

Connect with us and follow our news and stories:
→ Blog and Newsroom: https://www.torrens.edu.au/stories
→ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@torrensuni
→ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/school/torrens-university-australia/
→ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TorrensUni/
→ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/torrensuni

Transcript

SPEAKER_02: 0:13

We're talking about just even getting to work can be a sensory overload and the people in your personal space. We're sitting here today in Melbourne, Australia, one of the most locked down cities in the world during COVID. Is there research yet that sort of speaks to that the impact of that? Because of course we went from it being really normal for everyone to just get on a train or a bus every morning and commute to work and back and sit in crowded offices that are open plan, which might be a whole conversation in itself and how often phone officers work. And then we had a period where that wasn't an option. Is there research talking about what that's done in resetting people's expectations? Is it a good thing to for some people to not have that the way they start their day being necessarily commuting?

SPEAKER_00: 0:58

Absolutely. I and I mean first of all, when you talk about the what the research shows us, one thing we know uh that affects people's personal space as well is actually kind of awareness of pathogens. Um that's been known for ages. If you look at places that are historically have had any kind of you know plague or large-scale illness in some way, um they tend to have larger personal space boundaries just on average. Again, it's a it's a threat, it's another yet another threat in your environment. And what we saw after COVID is um there's this really interesting study, I just saw it actually, that on average it seems globally, personal space has kind of increased by about 54%. Wow. Yeah. So all of a sudden, and I I don't know, just speaking anecdotally, I know that I felt that personally when COVID hit. You go for lockdown walks and um I go for a walk around my neighborhood, and you'd see someone coming at you on the path, and it amygdala firing off yet again from a much further distance, and you'd try to maintain these big distances from people. And if somebody got too close to you at like the shops or something, it it felt like an existential threat, you know, and that's entirely happened because of our awareness of something in our environment and shows as well how much this shifts depending on context. So, you know, what's going on in the world or going on culturally for you, those things are definitely um going to impact how you feel about the space around you.

SPEAKER_02: 2:18

Fascinating. And are there cultural differences in perceptions of personal space? And is that correlated to population density, climate?

SPEAKER_00: 2:28

So absolutely. Um, and some of the original research I've heard it described as being done kind of based off of vibes of cultures, it sort of separated them into contact cultures and non-contact cultures. Um, but some of the ones that seem to have kind of held up as, I guess, contact cultures where that just means that you like getting close, non-contact means you like to stay a bit further away. Our close contact cultures, Mediterranean cultures, for instance, seem to be a lot more happy occupying closer distances. British, sort of cold European countries tend to be non-contact cultures wanting to stay away. And one of the big fields of research there has been looking at temperature as a reason for this. And I remember first hearing about this research, and initially my instinct, I lived in Brisbane for 10 years, and I was thinking about you know summer in Brisbane. I was like, well, surely the hot countries are gonna want to stay really far away because I can't imagine. Exactly, exactly. But um, no, actually, what you tend to find is that hotter climates seem to be associated with being more contact cultures, being closer together. And some people have argued this is almost like uh I guess the effects of the warm environment are kind of making you more emotionally warm. Um, it's kind of like priming you for that as a possibility. But we do see um one, I suppose, counterexample to this, and that's in cultures that have histories of disease, like I said before. Yep. And that's the other thing because some warm countries are also really great environments for pathogens to exist. So if that's happened, that tends to kind of buck the trend a little bit there.

SPEAKER_02: 3:57

Fascinating. And it it's all of this stuff, like you said, we're hardwired with eons of programming, and our current existence is uh less than a second on that clock of life, right? Exactly, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 4:11

Thanks for listening to today's episode. To stay up to date and get more practical, evidence-based tips, hit follow or subscribe wherever you're listening. For more expert insights, search Torrens University blog on Google.

SPEAKER_02: 4:24

And a disclaimer. The information discussed in this podcast is for general information purposes only and is not intended as medical advice. The content should not be relied on as a substitute for professional health care, and if you have any concerns about your health, please do consult a qualified healthcare professional.