Abstract:

In this lecture, we attempt to find answers to the perceptions and experiences related to online education, with the help of the stories told, which can adequately indicate the epidemic's effects on the 15-29-year-old age group. We can reasonably assume that the global pandemic events of 2020, 2021 and partly 2022, associated with digital education, may have profound and long-lasting effects on young people as a social group. However, there are only a few scientific findings contributing to assessing the COVID-19 pandemic's long-term impact on young people.

A new, non-intervention big data based sociological method, so-called NET-nography-social listening, shows the real-time experiences and opinions of Hungarian 15-29-year-olds. The textual contents of the communication (posts, comments) were collected mainly from the platforms used by young people (social media sites, groups, blogs). For the large-scale study, a database of three millions of hits were created, which was first processed by an algorithm, and then the content of the cleaned database was read, coded and analyzed by researchers.

Based on social listening, we identify three stages of the epidemic which are characterized by three words: excitement, fear, and rejection. Through content analysis, we analyzed online education and the perceived differences in competence in infrastructural and educational organizations.

Young people's assessment of digital education is two-fold: positive attitudes are primarily related to the measurement/evaluation of student performance, and negative ones to the effectiveness of the learning process. The epidemic has increased the value of face-to-face education and the eroding effect of online school on social relations.

Keywords:

NET-nography, young people, experiences of COVID-19, long-term effect.