Comprendere le cause

Abstract

ISTAT's Report on Fair and Sustainable Welfare shows very worrying data on the lacerations produced by the pandemic, including in the field of education and culture. Cultural participation outside home is falling sharply, and this also affects libraries, whose number of visitors has halved in two years. It is particularly striking that in 2021 things are much worse than in 2020 and that it is young people who have moved away, much more than adults. In 2021, people and youngs in particular felt the effects of the pandemic’s lingering effects most dramatically, as shown by the decline in all indicators of social participation. The distancing measures have hit young people hardest. They have been deprived of two years of relationships with their peers and are going through a period of severe psychological distress: they are holed up at home, isolated in their online world. The response cannot be entrusted to cultural policies alone, but requires systemic and not sectoral interventions. Today more than ever, policies for the well-being of young people must be policies for the well-being of the country as a whole, based on planning that is appropriate to the challenges of the present day. Libraries can also play an important role here.