Quaranteens: How much damage is the COVID-19 quarantine doing to the youth?

 

Quaranteens: How much damage is the COVID-19 quarantine doing to the youth?

By Lucas Sherles

November 3, 2020

As COVID-19 completely took over the world in March of this year, life as we knew it began to change completely. Countless businesses shut down and left millions without jobs, and work and school were now conducted remotely. While it’s undeniable that everyone has been impacted by the shutdown and the quarantine that we had to endure, teenagers have been greatly impacted during an already difficult and hugely important time of their lives. To all the parents, have you been worried about your teenage child during these tough times? Have they been acting differently or been more isolated? For teenagers specifically, while there have been some positive effects stemming from quarantine, the negative effects heavily outweigh the positive ones. Despite having more time to focus on themselves, teens have been significantly damaged by COVID-19 and the ensuing quarantine because of the lack of social interaction, increased stress, and increased use of technology and social media.

One of the most important things that teens have been missing out on during quarantine is their social interactions and relationships. Teens are extremely reliant on relationships and interactions with those close to them because this is a very defining period in their life. Teens experience a huge surge in hormone production, which also leads to an increase in a specific chemical called oxytocin. According to Paul J. Zak, professor at Claremont Graduate University, Oxytocin is a chemical that sends signals to the brain that create feelings of trust, which is instrumental in the relationships that we create. This means that teens are very reliant on the relationships that they have. Ronald E. Dahl, Director of the Institute of Human Development at UC Berkeley, and Jiska S. Peper, Assistant Professor and Leiden University, have both done extensive research on the teenage brain and the hormones and chemicals that send signals to the brain. They state that “Given the dynamic social changes in adolescence—establishment of close friendships, intense motivations, and emotions associated with early sexual and romantic relationships, as well as changes in family relationships—it would be surprising if pubertal changes in these oxytocin and vasopressin systems were not intertwined with some of these developmental changes.” This shows that teens are going through a lot of changes regarding their social behavior and need these interactions and relationships to develop and find their identity, meaning that quarantine is extremely damaging to them and their development.

This begs the question: why is missing out on these social interactions so important for teens? From personal experience, I can definitely say that I have become more isolated and been feeling much more lonely during quarantine, and that is largely due to not being able to see my friends. Before COVID-19 began ravaging throughout the world, I was able to see my friends every day at school and hang out with them whenever I wanted to, without really having to worry too much about a pandemic and whether or not I was going to bring it back to my family. Now, I can’t even be in the same car as my friends without risking our health, and the lack of social interactions that I can have is really making me feel lonely, and research shows that I’m not the only one who feels this way. The Pakistan Journal of Medical Sciences conducted a study on subjects all around the world under the age of 18 and found that “Social distancing measures like quarantine can worsen feelings of loneliness and isolation. Children and adolescents need to stay connected with family and friends, which gets difficult with school closures, limited visits with friends and families etc. Inability to activate your social network is noted to be associated with anxiety and distress”.  This displays the profound impact that missing these social interactions is enforcing upon teens and specifically highlights school closures and limited visits with friends as two major causes of anxiety and distress during the COVID-19 quarantine. 

Speaking of stress, life as a whole has become much more stressful for teens as a result of quarantine. Teens have a lot of things on their plate as it is, and quarantine has only introduced more things for them to worry about. As stated previously, people experience a great increase in hormone production during the teenage years. With this comes a heightened reactivity to stress according to Russell D. Romeo, professor of psychology at Barnard College. Romeo states that “many factors may converge during this stage of development that may make the adolescent brain particularly vulnerable to stressors” and “due to the increases in hormonal stress reactivity described above, it would appear that these maturing and exquisitely stress-sensitive brain regions in the adolescent would be exposed to greater and more prolonged levels of glucocorticoids.” Glucocorticoids are a type of hormone that contributes to the physiological and behavioral responses to stressors, which means that Romeo is saying that adolescents going through the teenage stage grow a heightened reactivity to stress because of these hormones. Given that teens are already exposed to these hormones, now we have to consider everything that COVID-19 quarantine has added to their plate. Nancy Maes, writer for Chicago Health, lists several concerns and stressors that teens have had to face during these times. The fear of loved ones becoming ill, missing friends, and nonstop pandemic news are just a few new stressors that teens have to worry about. Add these on top of what teens already have on their plate (things like school, social anxiety, etc.) and you have the recipe for an overstressed teen. 

Even though it seems fairly obvious that quarantine has become a more stressful time for everyone, teens especially, there is some research out there that claims the opposite. Jean M. Twenge, a writer for the Atlantic, claims that while the mental health of teens is still an issue, it has not worsened as a result of quarantine. Twenge states that “teens have been sleeping more during the pandemic, and teens who are sleep deprived are significantly more likely to suffer from depression. In 2018, only 55 percent of teens said they usually slept seven or more hours a night. During the pandemic, this jumped to 84 percent among those for whom school was still in session”. 

Twenge also claims that fewer teens were depressed during quarantine in comparison to 2018, as seen in the table above. Twenge compares the findings of a self-conducted survey from 2020 with the findings of a similar survey from 2018 and comes to the conclusion that teens have been less depressed because they’ve been able to sleep more and been able to spend more time on themselves. On top of that, Twenge’s research shows that teens have been using technology less, as social media use and gaming has gone down according to her metrics. She states that teens “spent less time gaming, texting, and using social media.” Twenge claims that because these have gone down, even though teens are watching more tv and movies online, that the mental health of teens is getting better because social media has a much greater effect on mental health than tv and movies do. However, Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago published a report stating that social media was on the rise during quarantine, rebuking Twenge’s claim.  

The table above represents a survey of parents who were asked about their teen’s social media habits during quarantine, and not surprisingly, 63% of parents claimed that their children were using social media more. This is harmful to teens because the overuse of social media has been linked to cyberbullying, depression, and a decrease in sleep, directly contradicting Twenge’s claim that teens are sleeping more. If teens are using social media and technology more often, then it is not far fetched to believe that they are losing sleep as a result as well. The Ministry of Science and Innovation of Spain also has research that has found that the use of screens in those under 18 years of age has increased dramatically, as most adolescents went from an hour to an hour and a half of screen time to two hours or more. This not only displays a drastic increase in social media and technology as a whole, but it also rebukes the claims of Twenge that social media use has decreased and is helping better the mental health of teens. 

Now, you may be wondering: why is it so detrimental for my teen to be using technology and social media all the time? They have more time on their hands anyway, so why is it such a bad thing? Well, it’s a bad thing because the teenage years are the time of a human’s life where they experience the most growth and change, especially in their brain. The brain of a teenager needs to develop and mature as they progress towards adulthood, and using technology and social media constantly is very damaging to that development. In his article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Pulitzer Prize Finalist Nicholas Carr explains how our brains are being reprogrammed because of our overuse of technology. He states that because of how the internet simplifies things for us that our brains become used to simple things and cannot handle large amounts of information. This is crucial for teenagers who are going through a developmental phase because they struggle to develop analytical skills as they develop into adulthood, according to researchers from Greater Paris University Hospital. Connecting this back to the increase that we’ve seen in social media and technology use, it is evident that teens are struggling mentally in terms of their development and their emotions as well.

COVID-19 is imposing itself on teens, who are struggling mentally during this time. If you are a parent of a teen who is struggling mentally as a result of COVID and quarantine, you can try and limit their technology use and do interactive things with them like go for a walk or play board games. If you are unable to help them and fear for their safety, contact a social worker, psychologist, or counselor for more help. In order to prevent mental health issues with your teens, you should also talk to them on a consistent basis (not too often but every once in a while) about their social media use and make sure that they aren’t abusing it and getting addicted.