Has the Covid-19 pandemic created a burnout epidemic ? According to Google Trends – a tool that shows how often people have searched for a term or phrase since 2004 – internet searches for related burnout “at work, school or life” have reached a new record level. And if research on professional exhaustion existed as early as 2017 and was already relatively high, it experienced a real explosion in 2020: +40% for burnout at work, +70% for the one related to school and up to +85% for life-related burnout daily.
For many people, the symptoms of a burnout had made their first appearance, but the pandemic constituted a real breaking point, for those who had actually fallen ill, as well as for those with heavy family responsibilities and those occupying so-called professions. “essential” such as health professionals or teachers. At the start of 2022, theAmerican Psychological Association warned of an increase in the worsening of cases of burnout. “We know people in these professions have always had higher burnout rates, but it’s been so much harder to meet the demands during a pandemic in these professions.“said Professor Christina Maslach, professor of psychology at the University of California.
Is burnout better taken into account?
SO “are cases of burnout increasing or are we just more likely to search for answers using this term?“, asks the online media Quartz. While cases have certainly increased, theinterest in the subject has also increased. Means of coping with professional burnout, helping those who suffer from it or how to avoid it… Internet users are more aware of the problem, both on the Internet and in real life.
So be careful, the term “burn out” is not the most searched and popular term on Google Trends – for example “Lehman Brothers” was more searched for during this same period – but the one whose research has experienced the strongest increase. “Burnout as a concept has received more attention in recent years, and is increasingly used to explain the problems of modern work“, ends Qwartz.
Sources:
- Searches for “burnout” are at an all-time high, QwartzApril 28, 2022
- Burnout and stress are everywhere, American Psychological AssociationJanuary 2022
Read also:
- Burn out: everything that is true… and what is false
- Burn out: pay attention to the signs before reaching the breaking point
- Why do we (still) go to work when we are sick?
