• Journal of Internet Computing and Services
• /
• v.22 no.2
• /
• pp.109-121
• /
• 2021

As the global COVID-19 pandemic is prolonged, the Corona Blue phenomenon, combined with COVID-19 and blue, is intensifying. The purpose of this study is to analyze the current trend of Corona Blue in consideration of the possibility of increasing mental illness and the need for countermeasures, especially after COVID-19. This study tried to find out the relationship between stress and leisure activities before and after COVID-19 by using Corona Blue news article analysis through the topic modeling method, and questionnaire find out the help of stress and leisure activities. This study was compared and analyzed using two research methods. First, a total of 363 news articles were analyzed through topic modeling based on newspaper articles from January 2020, when COVID- 19 was upgraded to the "border" stage, until September, where the social distancing stage was strengthened to stage 2.5 in Korea. As a result of the study, a total of 28 topics were extracted, and similar topics were grouped into 7 groups: mental-demic, generational spread, causes of depression acceleration, increased fatigue, attitude to coping with long-term wars, changes in consumption, and efforts to overcome depression. Second, the SPSS statistical program was used to analyze the level of stress change according to leisure activities before/after COVID-19 and the main help according to leisure activities. As a result of the study, it was confirmed that the average difference in stress reduction according to participation in leisure activities before COVID-19 was larger than after COVID-19. Also, leisure activities were found to be effective in stress relief even after COVID-19. In addition, if the main help from leisure activities before COVID-19 was the meaning of relaxation and recharging through physical and social activities. After COVID-19, psychological roles such as mood swings through nature, outdoor activities, or intellectual activities were found to play a large part. As such, in this study, it was confirmed that understanding the current status of Corona Blue and coping with leisure in extreme stress situations has a positive effect. It is expected that this research can serve as a basis for preparing realistic and desirable leisure policies and countermeasures to overcome Corona Blue.

• Asian Journal for Public Opinion Research
• /
• v.8 no.3
• /
• pp.324-350
• /
• 2020

COVID-19 has challenged the pandemic response capability of many countries. Many governments around the world have imposed strict quarantine measures and border control to slow the spread of the virus. In the Philippines, the longest community quarantine has been imposed in the National Capital Region (NCR). However, the effectiveness of such measures is dependent on the cooperation of the public. The objective of this study was to gain an understanding of the knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) of selected employees in the NCR. An online survey was conducted June 4-18, 2020, with 100 employed people living in the NCR. Frequencies and percentages were computed to describe the respondents' answers, and the Kruskal-Wallis test was used to determine the differences in the respondents' KAP levels according to selected demographic characteristics. Of those surveyed, 92% have a high knowledge of COVID-19. The respondents have a positive attitude toward the need for health education and the seriousness of COVID-19, as well as stricter measures against the pandemic, but are less positive in terms of how the government is responding to the pandemic. They also follow strict measures that will prevent the further spread of the virus. The results highlight the respondents' favorability of stricter government measures to control the spread of COVID-19, including the reimposition of an enhanced community quarantine in the NCR.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
• /
• v.36 no.3
• /
• pp.266-274
• /
• 2023

Recently, sterilization technology has received increasing interest due to the COVID-19 pandemic and required safety precautions. Particularly, sterilization devices using near ultraviolet (UV) with a 405 nm wavelength are also drawing attention. It has a UV-C wavelength and other sterilization effects. Its blue-colored light on the boundary between UV and visible light is used as a light-emitting diode (LED) lamp for 405 nm sterilization, owing to its longer wavelengths than UV rays. However, the 405 nm wavelength contains blue light that can damage the eyes and skin during prolonged exposures and affect the emotional and biological parts of the body. Currently, 405 nm sterilization LED light registers are circulating in the market. However, they have not undergone safety tests for blue-light hazards. Thus, with the active distribution of sterilization LED lights, solid safety standards and management systems are essential to protect users from blue-light hazards. Accordingly, in this study, we conducted spectral radiance and spectral radiative luminance tests on 405 nm sterilization LED registers available in the market by the measurement criteria of IEC 62471. Safety standards must be established to secure users' safety against blue light hazards at a time when 405nm sterilization LED lights are actively distributed due to COVID-19.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
• /
• v.22 no.7
• /
• pp.384-394
• /
• 2022

This study aimed to examine how COVID-19 affected life and health of welfare recipients by comparing groups associated with sex, living with children, and household type and suggest directions for welfare policy and services. Researchers collected a random sample of 500 recipients from 𐩒𐩒gu, Seoul who are registered in Haengbok E-eum, the social security information system and conducted a survey on overall life domains and physical and mental health. For data analysis, t-test, Anova and chi-square test were used. The results showed that factors of sex, living with children, and household type made significant differences in difficulties of employment status, child care, leisure and cultural activities and overall social activities. In terms of health status, mental health status and life satisfaction have been decreased after COVID-19. There were statistical differences in COVID blue and thinking about death among different groups. Based on these findings, this study suggested directions for welfare services for the future New Normal society.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
• /
• v.27 no.1
• /
• pp.47-64
• /
• 2021

The global spread of COVID-19 around the world has not only affected many parts of our daily life but also has a huge impact on many areas, including the economy and society. As the number of confirmed cases and deaths increases, medical staff and the public are said to be experiencing psychological problems such as anxiety, depression, and stress. The collective tragedy that accompanies the epidemic raises fear and anxiety, which is known to cause enormous disruptions to the behavior and psychological well-being of many. Long-term negative emotions can reduce people's immunity and destroy their physical balance, so it is essential to understand the psychological state of COVID-19. This study suggests a method of monitoring medial news reflecting current days which requires striving not only for physical but also for psychological quarantine in the prolonged COVID-19 situation. Moreover, it is presented how an easier method of analyzing social media networks applies to those cases. The aim of this study is to assist health policymakers in fast and complex decision-making processes. News plays a major role in setting the policy agenda. Among various major media, news headlines are considered important in the field of communication science as a summary of the core content that the media wants to convey to the audiences who read it. News data used in this study was easily collected using "Bigkinds" that is created by integrating big data technology. With the collected news data, keywords were classified through text mining, and the relationship between words was visualized through semantic network analysis between keywords. Using the KrKwic program, a Korean semantic network analysis tool, text mining was performed and the frequency of words was calculated to easily identify keywords. The frequency of words appearing in keywords of articles related to COVID-19 emotions was checked and visualized in word cloud 'China', 'anxiety', 'situation', 'mind', 'social', and 'health' appeared high in relation to the emotions of COVID-19. In addition, UCINET, a specialized social network analysis program, was used to analyze connection centrality and cluster analysis, and a method of visualizing a graph using Net Draw was performed. As a result of analyzing the connection centrality between each data, it was found that the most central keywords in the keyword-centric network were 'psychology', 'COVID-19', 'blue', and 'anxiety'. The network of frequency of co-occurrence among the keywords appearing in the headlines of the news was visualized as a graph. The thickness of the line on the graph is proportional to the frequency of co-occurrence, and if the frequency of two words appearing at the same time is high, it is indicated by a thick line. It can be seen that the 'COVID-blue' pair is displayed in the boldest, and the 'COVID-emotion' and 'COVID-anxiety' pairs are displayed with a relatively thick line. 'Blue' related to COVID-19 is a word that means depression, and it was confirmed that COVID-19 and depression are keywords that should be of interest now. The research methodology used in this study has the convenience of being able to quickly measure social phenomena and changes while reducing costs. In this study, by analyzing news headlines, we were able to identify people's feelings and perceptions on issues related to COVID-19 depression, and identify the main agendas to be analyzed by deriving important keywords. By presenting and visualizing the subject and important keywords related to the COVID-19 emotion at a time, medical policy managers will be able to be provided a variety of perspectives when identifying and researching the regarding phenomenon. It is expected that it can help to use it as basic data for support, treatment and service development for psychological quarantine issues related to COVID-19.

• International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
• /
• v.10 no.1
• /
• pp.204-210
• /
• 2022

From the 1970s to the present, the number of new infectious diseases such as SARS, Ebola virus, and MERS has steadily increased. The new infectious disease, COVID-19, which began in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, has pushed the world into a pandemic era. As a result, Countries imposed restrictions on entry to foreign countries due to concerns over the spread of COVID-19, which led to a decrease in the movement of tourists. Due to the restriction of travel, keywords such as "Corona blue" have soared and depression has increased. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the stress meaning network of the COVID-19 era to derive keywords and come up with a plan for a travel-related platform of the Post-COVID 19 era. This study conducted analysis of travel and stress caused by COVID-19 using TEXTOM, a big data analysis tool, and conducted semantic network analysis using UCINET6. We also conducted a CONCOR analysis to classify keywords for clustering of words with similarities. However, since we have collected travel and stress-oriented data from the start to the present, we need to increase the number of analysis data and analyze more data in the future.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
• /
• v.9 no.2
• /
• pp.399-405
• /
• 2023

This study analyzed the cause of Corona Blue and tried to find out ways to improve the mental health of our society. The external activities decreased and the household economy got worse after COVID-19, so Corona Blue increased. The media use and the negative media information problems increased Corona Blue. The online activities had no effects. In order to relieve Corona Blue, it was suggested to increase the external activities personally, to make the social and economic conditions of women and the economic weaker better, to improve the quality of media disaster information, and for the media consumer to use the media properly.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
• /
• 2021.10a
• /
• pp.266-267
• /
• 2021

Recently, the COVID-19 Pandemic is not an infectious disease-level disaster, but a complex disaster, making it difficult to respond with traditional disaster response management methods. As a result, experiencing psychological stress and trauma such as COVID-19 has emerged as a new social problem. In preemptively predicting and effectively responding to these psychological disasters and crises, the necessity and direction of non-face-to-face disaster psychological support using ICT technology in traditional services are discussed.

• Safety and Health at Work
• /
• v.11 no.3
• /
• pp.275-283
• /
• 2020

Background: In the absence of a vaccine or treatment, the most pragmatic strategies against an infectious disease pandemic are extensive early detection testing and social distancing. This study aimed to summarize public and workplace responses to Coronavirus Disease-19 (COVID-19) and show how the Korean system has operated during the COVID-19 pandemic. Method: Daily briefings from the Korean Center for Disease Control and the Central Disaster Management Headquarters were assembled from January 20 to May 15, 2020. Results: By May 15, 2020, 11,018 COVID-19 cases were identified, of which 15.7% occurred in workplaces such as health-care facilities, call centers, sports clubs, coin karaoke, and nightlife destinations. When the first confirmed case was diagnosed, the Korean Center for Disease Control and Central Disaster Management Headquarters responded quickly, emphasizing early detection with numerous tests and a social distancing policy. This slowed the spread of infection without intensive containment, shut down, or mitigation interventions. After entering the public health blue alert level, a business continuity plan was distributed. After entering the orange level, the Ministry of Employment and Labor developed workplace guidelines for COVID-19 consisting of social distancing, flexible working schedules, early identification of workers with suspected infections, and disinfection of workplaces. Owing to the intensive workplace social distancing policy, workplaces remained safe with only small sporadic group infections. Conclusion: The workplace social distancing policy with timely implementation of specific guidelines was a key to preventing a large outbreak of COVID-19 in Korean workplaces. However, sporadic incidents of COVID-19 are still ongoing, and risk assessment in vulnerable workplaces should be continued.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
• /
• v.21 no.11
• /
• pp.609-625
• /
• 2021

It has now been more than a year since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in Korea, which has claimed thousands of lives and changed every aspect of life. The corona pandemic not only caused physical damages but also psychological one which is a collective social stress phenomenon often termed as 'corona blue'. The purpose of this study is to examine how empathy affects anxiety and depression through risk perception and indirect trauma, which are psychological variables related to the corona pandemic as a disaster. The survey data from 214 people were analyzed with a structural equation modelling. The results shows that 53.3 % of the participants experienced anxiety and 35.7% suffered from depression, which were about 6 times higher than ones from the 2019 government data. Affective empathy had a significant effect on risk perception, and cognitive empathy had a significant effect on indirect trauma. Risk perception and indirect trauma both had a significant effect on anxiety, and anxiety had a significant impact on depression. Only cognitive empathy had a significant indirect effect on anxiety and depression. This study provides an important insight into understanding a social phenomenon of 'corona blue' from a empathic perspective.