Loneliness, COVID-19 Media Coverage, and Teen Mental Health

 Key Points:

Teens could also be especially susceptible to the extreme, complex grief caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

Teens are more likely than adults to be battling depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation during the pandemic, a replacement study suggests.

Loneliness and increased consumption of COVID-19-related media were both related to a heightened risk of psychological state challenges in teens.

Recently, I spoke with an adolescent who'd lost a loved one to the disease caused by the coronavirus. Although it has been almost a year since her grandmother gave up the ghost, she struggles to permit the strong sensations of grief to wane naturally over time.

She indicated to me that a part of the rationale why she continues to feel overwhelming sadness is thanks to the frequency of reminders about her grandmother's explanation for death. lately, we will not such a lot as activate the tv or scroll through social media without being reminded of mask-wearing, social distancing, handwashing, and capacity regulations.

The purpose of this text isn't to criticize these measures. However, I found myself hypothesizing that the near-ubiquitous reminders about sickness and death couldn't possibly be helping my client heal after her grandmother's death. And, with the COVID-19 pandemic taking numerous lives, she's not alone in her loss or is experiencing the problem of complex grief.

How Are Teens Responding to COVID-19?

Reasoning that other adolescents must be experiencing similar stress and grief in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, I turned to the research literature to ascertain if any quantitative information has been published about the psychological effects of experiencing a once-in-a-lifetime socio-cultural trauma at such a young age.

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Indeed, a recently published (January 2021) nationwide study [4] of adolescents (n = 583) and adults (n = 4,326) confirms that the speed of "intense grief" for people that had lost a beloved to COVID-19 is 55 percent. Furthermore, while authors showed that each respondent on average was struggling to deal with the strain of the COVID-19 pandemic, adolescents showed significantly more depression, anxiety, PTSD symptoms, and suicidal ideation and behavior than their adult counterparts. In fact, for adolescent participants, 55 percent endorsed depression symptoms likely like major clinical depression. This seems to be a huge increase from a 2017 estimate that found only 13 percent of adolescents met the standards for a serious depressive episode [1].

The Negative Effects of Loneliness on Teen psychological state 

For adolescents, loneliness, stress, poor health quality, and poor sleep quality predicted depression, anxiety, and PTSD symptoms. What's more, the number of hours spent using social media was correlated with depression and anxiety symptoms. this is often potentially unsurprising given some past research suggesting a relationship between social media use and reported symptoms of depression [2].

However, Murata and colleagues [4] found something concerning. For adolescents, both loneliness and exposure to media reporting on COVID-19 were related to depression and a better risk for suicidal ideation and behavior. In total, 37 percent of adolescents experienced suicidal ideation, and 1.7 percent attempted suicide since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic—a saddening statistic.

Overall, the authors found loneliness to be the foremost statistically powerful predictor of depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms. And, since previous research with teens has shown that the duration of loneliness is more painful than the intensity of loneliness [3], the negative effects of lockdown and social distancing may grow as every day passes.

What are often Done?

Please don't get me wrong: I'm not trying to attenuate the loss of life or socio-economic effects of the pandemic. But evidence suggests that children are suffering psychologically and doing so statistically quite adults [4]. it's this author's opinion that advocates, parents, therapists, and policymakers should begin to significantly consider what steps should be taken to attenuate the devastating unintended effects of countermeasures against the COVID-19 pandemic on childhood psychological state. Hopefully, more research will still be published that gives tangible recommendations to assist our children to manage this unprecedented crisis.

References

Bose, J. (2017). Key substance use and psychological state indicators within the United States: Results from the 2017 National Survey on Drug Use and Health. 124, 1–62.

Keles, B., McCrae, N., & Grealish, A. (2020). a scientific review: The influence of social media on depression, anxiety, and psychological distress in adolescents. International Journal of Adolescence and Youth, 25(1), 79–93. https://doi-org.ezproxy.bgsu.edu/10.1080/02673843.2019.1590851

Loades, M. E., Chatburn, E., Higson‐Sweeney, N., Reynolds, S., Shafran, R., Brigden, A., Linney, C., McManus, M. N., Borwick, C., … Crawley, E. (2020). Rapid systematic review: The impact of social isolation and loneliness on the psychological state of youngsters and adolescents within the context of COVID‐19. Journal of the American Academy of kid and Adolescent Psychiatry, 59, 1218– 1239. https://doi-org.ezproxy.bgsu.edu/10.1016/j.jaac.2020.05.009

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