Anthropause

The term "anthropause" refers to a global reduction in modern human activity, especially travel, and was coined by a team of researchers in June 2020 in an article discussing the possible impact of COVID-19 lockdown on wildlife.[1] The scientific journal that published the commentary, Nature Ecology and Evolution, selected the topic for the cover of its September issue, with the headline “Welcome to the anthropause”.[2] Oxford Languages highlighted the word "anthropause" in its 2020 Words of an Unprecedented Year report.[3]

The word is a blended lexical item with phonological overlap, combining the prefix anthropo-, from anthropos (Ancient Greek: ἄνθρωπος) meaning “human”, and the English word “pause”; its literal translation is “human pause”. The researchers explained in their article that they noticed that people had started referring to the lockdown period as the Great Pause, but felt that a more precise term would be helpful. The word anthropause intentionally links to the proposed geological epoch Anthropocene. It is not capitalised as it is conceivable that the anthropause caused by COVID-19 will not remain the only such event.

Anthropause is a neologism that is fast entering common language usage, and has been adopted by social-media users, scientists,[4][5] journalists,[6][7] artists,[8] and photographers,[9] amongst others. William Gibson, the speculative fiction writer who famously coined the term “cyberspace” in his short story “Burning Chrome” in 1982, posted a tweet on 23 June 2020 simply entitled “The Anthropause”, linking to the article that introduced the term.[10]

Several global research projects are underway to investigate the effects of the COVID-19 anthropause.[11] For example, a recent study documented a global reduction of high-frequency seismic noise.[12] Another study, the COVID-19 Bio-Logging Initiative, uses animal tracking data collected before, during, and after lockdown, to assess how changes in human activity levels affected the movements and behaviour of a wide range of marine, terrestrial, and avian species.[7][13] In 2021, an article published in The Geographical Journal historically situated the COVID-19 anthropause amongst other anthropause events that led to significant reductions in human activity, such as the Chernobyl nuclear disaster and the formation of the Korean Demilitarized Zone.[14] The authors drew attention to how the anthropause was experienced unevenly by different groups of people and animals, and shed light on a range of pre-existing inequalities as many humans were not afforded the opportunity to pause during this time.