[Desk Column] Corona Baby

[Asia Economy Reporter Myung Jin-gyu] The process of children learning language is very fascinating. From newborn to three months, their sounds are limited to cries expressing needs and joyful noises like "kkya~ kkya~." After three months, they begin babbling by imitating the sounds they hear. Genuine communication starts after six months. This is the cognitive stage where they begin to understand familiar words. Although they cannot speak yet, they actively communicate using various sounds and gestures. After ten months, they finally start speaking. They begin using meaningful words like "eomma" (mom) and "appa" (dad).

Between their first birthday and before turning two, children enter the stage of learning to speak, acquiring words for various objects and starting to form sentences.

Not long ago, I had lunch with a junior colleague who had just returned from parental leave. Naturally, the conversation turned to COVID-19. While talking about their child who had just turned one, the junior said that the first word their child learned after "mom" and "dad" was "mask." The child says "mask" when wanting to go outside and puts on a mask.

To a child who has just turned one, the world is filled with people wearing masks. It was chilling to think that a new generation has emerged who cannot imagine going outside without a mask. I shared a wry smile with my junior as they talked about looking for places where their child could go without wearing a mask. For a generation just learning to speak and discovering the world, the outside world can only be remembered as an uncomfortable and stifling place.

The impact of COVID-19 is absolute even for children who have just started school. The absence of entrance and graduation ceremonies is a minor issue. The real problem is the lack of friends. A child who just entered high school was busy replying to group chats with friends every evening at the beginning of the semester but is now idle. They do not go to school, and parents, worried about falling behind, focus intensely on academies and private tutoring, so children remain busy. As a result, even friendships formed at the start of the semester inevitably grow distant.

There are no longer memories with friends, who make up most of school life. Midterms and finals following online classes have even diminished the value of education. Schools in the COVID-19 era have no memories left, only simple score competitions remain.

I suddenly checked my KakaoTalk chat rooms. Conversations with friends and acquaintances about enduring the hardships of COVID-19 have gradually decreased since the beginning of this year. Many gatherings that were once frequent now barely survive, and most interactions are limited to brief greetings. We are all continuing through an era of loss, each experiencing our own losses due to COVID-19.

Eating alone, once a matter of choice, has now become commonplace. At restaurants, four-person tables are split between two people, with acrylic partitions installed on one side to allow for solo dining. Going together but eating separately has become the norm. Using ready meals and meal kits at home instead of dining out is no longer unfamiliar. The Korea Rural Economic Institute expects the ready meal market to reach about 4 trillion won this year, with meal kits hitting 100 billion won. While the dining industry worries about survival, food companies are concerned about delivery.

The problem is that this situation is expected to continue for several years. Although currently just a concern, there is no doubt that society will undergo another rapid transformation when the COVID-19 babies, who have never experienced a world without masks, and the generation who spent their school years competing without friends become the main actors in society.

Many companies and even the government are devising measures for the post-COVID era, but no one talks about loss. Explaining the post-COVID world merely as contactless (untact) is narrow-minded. It is time to conduct accurate research on the COVID generation, the impact they will have, and to prepare measures to minimize side effects.