Lockdown and social distancing, bad effects on teenagers’ minds.

Covid-19 is taking a big place in our society, we live with lockdowns, social distancing and a lot of rules to keep us safe. Everybody talks about how difficult it is for the commercials to keep going, for adults to keep up with everything, but do we talk about teenagers ?

Schools are opened, kids can see their friends, communicate, they have distraction we can think. However, it’s not that easy. 

Social interactions are a basic human need, not satisfying our needs to connect with others can cause mental and physical consequences. In fact, it’s increasing mortality. The measures taken to protect us from Covid-19 are lowering the basic social activities opportunities, such as visiting family and friends. The bad effects of social deprivation can be seen in everyone, but the consequences are even worse on adolescents.

Teenage years are an important period of our life. During this period, they need social stimuli, to see their pairs, to communicate with friends. The lockdown that keeps them inside and the social distancing make this difficult for them to have the social activities they need. They highly reduce the chance of face-to-face contact between adolescents. This contact is an important part of the teenagers evolution. 

Studies have been made on animal to prove that isolation in the teenage years is bad. They showed that isolation, even if it’s a short period, can bring a lot of harmful effects. For example, anxiety, hyperactivity and a tendacy to developp addictions. Some of the similar studies made on teenagers show the same results, psycologic distress, such as addiction and mutilation.

The multiple lockdown in which we are constantly living these times are crucial. It can affect the 10 to 24 years, causing them long term effects, and not good ones.