ISTANBUL - The Covid-19 epidemic is having a negative impact on people's daily lives, with the latest study in Japan revealing that more schoolchildren are disinclined to study. A survey of 10,000 schoolchildren up to high school grades conducted last year showed that a record 54.3 percent of students "lacked motivation to study," Kyodo News reported on Wednesday. The joint study was carried out by the Benesse Educational Research and Development Institute and the Institute of Social Science at the University of Tokyo. The latest figure was up from 45.1 percent in 2019, the year before the pandemic and 50.7 percent in 2020 after Covid-19 broke out. Japan has been conducting such surveys since 2015. The researchers reached out to the students through mails and other means between July and September last year. Kaoru Sato, a sociology professor at the university, said: "Covid-19 has limited their interaction and the leisure activities they do together, while (restrictio