CovidCovid-19: The Global Temporal Hiccup

This chapter applies the Model of Temporality in Consumption to the context of the pandemic of CovidCovid-19 because it was a time in which society experienced altered collective perceptions of temporality. Once again, in using this model, practitioners can understand the importance of time to customers in all aspects of experiential consumptionexperiential consumption, and the pandemic demonstrates this applicability also. In Covid, when perceived as a valuable resource, customers were again concerned about how much time they had and how it was spent. Different questions about the optimal use of time emerged during the pandemic. When perceived as a rate of movement, customers were concerned about the passage of timepassage of time and how quickly or slowly it seemed to pass. A primary concern for some might have been, that time was mostly passing slowly because of changes to usual routines, whereas for others more quickly, perhaps due to increased caring responsibilities. When perceived as a moment of now, customers were concerned with how it felt to live during the pandemic and how time might be experienced. When perceived as a memory or vision, customers were both looking back to previous utility of time or experiences pre-pandemic and also, perhaps fearfully, looking to the future as the pandemic continued to unfold. This chapter concludes by evaluating some of the legacies of Covid-19 and what impact the pandemic may have had on consumption experiences.