United States: How COVID-19 Could Worsen the Creativity Crisis

(12 November 2020) Almost 10 years ago Dr. Kyung Hee Kim, professor at The College of William & Mary, published research that examined creativity trends in the United States. The results were discouraging: "Since 1990 creative thinking has been declining among Americans of all ages, especially in kindergarten through third grade."

• Among the reasons Dr. Kim cited was the growth in interaction via technologies in a more impersonal way, lacking in person-to-person, verbal, and other interpersonal communicative signals.
• Around the same time, additional research came out showing that time once dedicated to social interactions had been eroded by electronic media use. From 1987 to 2007, daily time spent on social interactions decreased from six to just two hours per day, while electronic media usage time doubled from four to eight hours per day, according research published by Dr. Aric Sigman. No doubt, today this difference has increased even more, since children in their earliest years learn to slide their little fingers across gadget screens.

You might wonder why we are featuring 10-year old data at Knoema. The answer: The COVID-19 pandemic. We're living through a period of dramatic decline in the intensity of social person-to-person interactions. And while employers to universities may have turned to remote work and learning as a lifeline, no one is sure what will be the new norm for remote engagement. And, we wonder, will a strong shift to remote format be the creative thing to do? Can the interactive nature of Zoom chat, Facetime calls, and Skype conferencing counteract the creativity declines described a decade ago?

• Can we even turn back if that answer is no? Pre-COVID data published by Common Sense Media back in 2017 showed that the percentage of 0-8 year old kids that had access to their own tablet had already increased from almost zero in 2011 to 42 percent in 2017. During that same period, daily time spent each day on mobile devices increased almost ten fold - from 5 to 48 minutes per day on average.
  

Note: description of Torrance Test Of Creative Thinking can be fond here