The Dilemma Teenagers Face in This Pandemic, and Why We Need to Make Better Choices

 

Culture

The Dilemma Teenagers Face in This Pandemic, and Why We Need to Make Better Choices

“the virus can either have control over us or we can have control over it by limiting our interactions with others.”

BY FELA GOERZ

NOVEMBER 3, 2020

For over seven months now we have been dealing with a global pandemic due to Coronavirus (COVID-19) that has impacted all aspects of our lives from school, work, to friendships, relationships, and more. Currently, the US has reached 8,834,393 confirmed cases and 227,045 deaths with an uncertainty of when we will have a vaccine. Recently a TIME article stated that COVID-19 cases are now rising more in younger people, with cases doubling in teens (Barone, 2020). 

The reason why cases are spiking in teenagers is that we are not following guidelines as closely as adults. According to the CDC, self-reported mitigation behaviors for COVID-19 were the lowest in teenagers and young people. If we know that cases are increasingly higher in young people than before, and mitigation behaviors are lowest, then what is making it so difficult for us to follow guidelines to stay safe? If more of us are getting cases of COVID-19, don’t you think we should take better precautions to minimize the risk? Well, it is not that simple. 

If you open any of your social media I bet you will see several peers getting lunch, going shopping, and even in the worst case, attending a party. During this time, there are, of course, necessary exceptions in terms of going out, such as jobs, medical appointments, grocery shopping, etc. I’m not talking about those scenarios, I am specifically talking about teenagers who are going out for unnecessary reasons. To be fair, I have had a few social distance hangouts with a friend, but once cases began to rise again, I had to make the not-so-fun choice to stay home instead of choosing to take a risk that could impact my families health. I get it. 

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In this editorial, I will make the case that following guideline during the pandemic is difficult for teenagers emotionally and biologically because of our predisposition to risk-taking and due to the development of our brains cognitively and emotionally, and why we need to be prioritizing health and safety measures more than we currently are. 

What Happened? What is the Problem?

Since lockdown in March, businesses have closed, schools have shut down and reopened and then shut down again. Everything in our lives has been up in the air. This unprecedented situation is bigger than most have ever experienced in their lifetimes, even adults. Adults don’t have the answers, and we don’t either, which has developed a lot of anxiety for teenagers. Without a clear path towards some sort of normalcy, it is hard to make informed decisions in the present. Our future plans and goals feel out of reach, and discomfort develops where it is easy to do the opposite of what we are being told. This means more teenagers are going out with friends more, not wearing masks, and not social distancing. 

With all of this unknown, it is appealing to take risks without considering the consequences. However, we need to step back and look at the repercussions of not utilizing mitigation behaviors such as social distancing and wearing masks. It would be a lot harder emotionally to deal with losing a family member or close friend because you didn’t follow safety precautions. Or at the least, say you get really sick and have to deal with health issues in the future. According to the Mayo Clinic, COVID-19 can cause brain issues for young people such as strokes, Guillain-Barre syndrome(a condition causing temporary paralysis), strokes, and can increase the possibility of Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease. These are not risks we want to be taking. How awful would it be to risk lifelong health issues because we made a simple mistake? The answer is: it would be devastating emotionally and physically. 

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Biological Perspective

A large factor in the difficulty we have in practicing mitigation behaviors is due to the biological stage of life we are in. Teenage years are the most complicated time for decision-making. We have many new freedoms and this is a time of experimentation. However, our brains work differently than adults. We are more hardwired to act on impulse and engage in risky behaviors. This is because the frontal cortex of our brains which controls our reasoning and decision making is in the process of developing, which continues into adulthood (AACAP). This explains why it is easier for us to engage in dangerous activities during this pandemic because we have a feeling of invincibility. Another key point is the lack of consensus on guidelines from health officials. There has been debate about what are the safest guidelines to follow, and with that inconsistency from health officials and the white house administration, it is more complicated than we would like it to be. There is no clear path to take, leaving most of the decision-making to us. It is a fight against logic and emotion. Which one wins?

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Emotional Perspective

Emotions are heightened at this time when we are unable to see friends, and we are losing opportunities to form new relationships, among missing out on many social engagements and celebrations. In Culturally Responsive Teaching & The Brain, Zaretta Hammond utilizes the inner workings of the brain to explain how students learn and think, and this can be applied to our understanding of how we interact with risk-taking based on emotions and our past experiences. Hammond explains that the limbic region of our brains controls emotion, behavior, and cognition, and this region helps us learn from past experiences in order to make decisions in the present (Hammond, 2014). However, during an event we have not experienced before such as a global pandemic, we do not have any prior experience to apply to these circumstances. 

My therapist always talks about the difficulty teenagers face in dealing with new hardships because of the limited past experiences we have to utilize. We can’t say “wow, this is a difficult experience I’m going through, but, you know what, I was able to get through something similar in the past, so I can do the same this time”. We do not have that prior experience in order to make better decisions this time around. So what we are seeing is a lot of young people making these mistakes now, because there is not a past experience to lean on and grow from. This is another factor that makes it easier to take risks. Granted, these risks are a bit larger than usual.

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This is Bigger Than Us

In many aspects of our lives when we make mistakes who does it affect? Us. You could say it affects our friends and family emotionally, but we are the ones reaping the consequences for the most part. However, in a global pandemic, the harsh reality is that, when we make mistakes, the people we surround ourselves with get impacted as well, and not only that but our communities too. Moreover, as most of our generation believe in and fight for social justice movements such as Black Lives Matter(BLM), we need to think about how our actions affect the safety and wellbeing of those we are fighting for. Data from the National Urban League has shown that Black Americans are 3 times more likely to contract a COVID-19 case than White Americans. This should be a concern for all of us that call ourselves allies to BLM. Otherwise, that’s just performative. 

Our actions have an impact on those we care about, and it is our moral duty to take that care for others and think before we act. There is a chapter called There Is No Justice In History from a book by Yuval Noah Harari, where he discusses the hierarchies in our society, and one of the prominent ones is the racial and economic hierarchy in America. Access to resources during COVID-19 is a huge determiner in your safety during this pandemic. If we are fortunate to have that access to medical care, we must remember that not everyone has that access, so we need to be aware of how going out and possibly getting infected does not only affect our health, but it could affect someone less privileged that we interact with. Maybe they don’t have the means to seek medical care? 

This is a time to think about how we want to protect our friends, family members, communities, and the people that are risking their lives to provide us with necessities during this time. 

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What About our Futures? 

Another key component is the preservation of our own future. How we want our futures to look is dependent on us. Don’t you want to be able to take that post-graduation trip, be able to visit your grandparents, and see that friend from out of state? Everything we do now affects how long we will be in this pandemic. The longer we choose to take risks and not practice mitigation behaviors, that means the pandemic is not ending any time soon. And I know some people may say that we cannot remain at home forever, and we need to go out at some point, which is true. But unfortunately, the virus does not go away because we want it to. That mentality does not make the virus any less deadly. Whether we like it or not, the virus can either have control over us or we can have control over it by limiting our interactions with others. The key is finding balance in our own circles of friends. A recent article by the Seattle Times showed that a possible strategy to staying safe while seeing friends is creating a “pandemic pod” with a small group of friends. This means that a safer option (nothing is completely risk-free) for seeing friends is through making agreements and rules your group will follow in order to see each other. This works so that everybody does their best to keep each other safe through accountability and honesty. 

So What?

Most have heard the phrase: “actions have consequences”, which is true, and in a global pandemic these consequences may not seem as visible and obvious, but they are even more consequential. We have a duty to ourselves and others to mitigate risky behavior because this virus is bigger than any of us. Whether we believe it or not, we are impacted by the virus in every aspect of our life right now. It is complicated because of the emotional and biological stage we are in as teenagers, but we must make decisions with health and safety in mind over our immediate desires. We are strong and we can get through this time if we are accountable for our actions and prioritize health and safety. We are a strong generation, with brighter days ahead. We will be okay. 

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Sources

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