Beneficiality of the lockdown was irrespective of most factors like age, gender, locality, education, marital status, family structure, companions during the lockdown, occupation, current working status and whether an individual is a working professional or a student. Income however, was a significant factor. Those with the least income level, i.e., less than Rs 70000, felt the lockdown was least beneficial. Like life satisfaction, beneficiality of the lockdown too, was less for those working from home but, with decreased working hours. Change in working hours had not affected the beneficiality of those working from the workplace.
Job satisfaction was irrespective of gender, marital status, education level and locality. Differences were seen in the well-being of the rural and the urban in Netherlands (Leeuwen & Lepage, 2020), which was not the case here. Contrary to the common belief, level of income was not related to job satisfaction levels. Like life satisfaction, job satisfaction too was less for those working from home and had decreased working hours. Change in working hours had not affected job satisfaction of those working from the workplace. Among the people who actually belonged to the workforce, but had not been able to work during the lockdown, either from home or workplace, those who were getting paid as usual had higher levels of life satisfaction than those who were getting paid unusually less or not getting paid at all.
Giving some time to oneself is a great practice that helps in reducing stress by doing something that one likes and benefits that person. It was seen on further tests that younger people could make more time for themselves, both before and during the lockdown phase. Married people could not make as much time for themselves as those who were single. Also, people from joint families were able to give less time to themselves than those from nuclear families before and during the lockdown. Contrary to what was expected, level of life satisfaction was not much affected by the time people gave themselves.
Age of an individual was affecting the amount of time they spent on social media platforms. Like time to oneself, younger people could afford to spend more time on social media than the older. It was seen that those of age group 15-23 spent more time than everybody else. People who were single, comparatively spent more time on social media. In joint families, the presence of a lot of family members, probably keeps individuals more engaged and leaves them with less time to spend on social media than the ones from nuclear families. It was seen that during the lockdown, those who spent more than five hours on social media had lower levels of life satisfaction. The reason could be the presence of a lot of negativity and fake information over these platforms that can only make a person feel anxious and uncertain about everything.
Those with increased mutual understanding amongst the members of their family found the lockdown to be more beneficial and had higher levels of life satisfaction. But, on further tests, it was seen that these results were not applicable to joint families. Those who thought their family functioning had improved during the lockdown had higher levels of life satisfaction and also found the lockdown more beneficial. Those who claimed that their involvement with family members had increased during the lockdown had considered the lockdown more beneficial and also had higher levels of life satisfaction. Nuclear families showed the same results, while no relationship between involvement with family and beneficiality or life satisfaction during the lockdown was found in joint families. Apart from the negative impact the confinement has brought to people, it was seen that people have seen this as an opportunity to work on their relationships with their families, and thus found the lockdown to be beneficial.