By Adele D.
Since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, young people have been mentioned multiple times in the news regarding their mental health and the time they have lost to explore their world as the generations their age did before them.
It has been over a year since the first lockdown in the Uk and only a few months since schools re-opened again after the Uk’s 3rd lockdown. According to the BBC, "research suggests growing feelings of loneliness and social isolation have had a negative impact" on young people’s mental health. Many parents expressed that they were worried their children were experiencing depression and anxiety while not in school because of the pandemic. The dawn of the Covid-19 pandemic also brought a new way of life along with it and adjusting to the world of hand sanitisers, virtual hugs and social separation from loved ones, friends and family has proved a struggle for all ages.
In the short film, Our Lives: A Pandemic story, several young people mentioned how they had gone through a phase of depression because of the pandemic but that they came to terms with and in some cases excelled in lockdown. While the pandemic may have been isolating Maddie says it has given her generation "time to get to know (themselves) and to find (themselves),” while Aoife shared how lockdown gave her more time to improve at hobbies such as art. On the contrary, many young people expressed how they felt they had lost their youth/teenage years. The short videos and images of traveling, spending time with friends and chasing a productive busy lifestyle promoted by social media such as TikTok and Instagram made the summer of 2020 all the more disappointing.
The news is not all bad though, the pandemic has had a positive effect on the mental health of some teens. The BBC states that some teens who struggled with social interaction, depression and anxiety "were relieved to be away from the daily stresses of school - and coped better." Being away from the school environment for these young people has enabled them to better cope with conditions such as social anxiety. Online school gave teens more time to take their education at their own pace and so gain a better understanding of difficult topics studied in “class.”
Online school has been a controversial topic since the dawn of Covid-19 appearing multiple times across British news broadcasted by The BBC and articles in newspapers such as the Daily Mail. Although a number articles seem to support online school as a negative thing young people from India, the UK, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Ghana shared a broader view. Sophie says, “it’s hard because I can’t put my hand up when asking for help,” making asking for help less appealing. Several young people also said they struggled to focus during lessons and the all too famous WiFi problems of losing connection or glitching audio/video made grasping difficult new topics twice as challenging.
Despite this, it seems that being responsible for ones education and having a flexible schedule appealed to many young people and seemed equally if not more successful than in-person school. A number of parents shared with the BBC and the American station MSNBC news within the last year, that their child had excelled greatly outside of school and they were considering home-schooling their child instead of sending them back to school or wanted the school to only go back part time, incorporating a system called “Flexi-schooling.” In terms of socialising, Anya, who has been online schooling for 7 years, says that while social elements aren’t exactly the same as school, there are several other ways in which young people can socialise online and meet in-person outside of lessons.
Although the last year during the pandemic has been considerably bleak, the decline of covid-19 and return of some sense of normality also seems close to hand in the UK. This is due to the Governments successful roadmap and the vaccine implementation programme many young people are hopeful for a brighter future after the pandemic. For example, Jonathan hopes “everyone can…keep the world spinning in a positive way.” He, like many other young people, believes that through the pandemic and many other monumental events such as the international response to the death of George Floyd that occurred last year, the world has and will become united in the fight for equality, awareness and positive change.
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