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One in three young people say they felt happier during lockdown

266 points by vanilla-almond 5y ago

joelbondurant1 5y ago
coldtea 5y ago
Of course. As students (born in the internet+smartphone era) they were primed all their life to feel freer in asocial cocooning
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  > As students (born in the internet+smartphone era) they were primed all their life to feel freer in asocial cocooning Don't know what kind of students you're thinking about - I can't imagine anyone more intensely social than a group of freshers?
  - coldtea 5y ago
    That's maybe because you don't have experience with past groups of freshers to compare modern ones to...
    - chrisseaton 5y ago
      Been involved with universities since 2003.
      - coldtea 5y ago
        And yet you've managed not to see any change any outgoingness, loneliness, time spent on screen, etc., in students and teenagers, despite those being registered in all kinds of studies and polls? Heck, even the sex has been going down... [1] https://abcnews.go.com/US/teens-spend-hours-screens-entertainment-day-report/story?id=66607555 https://abcnews.go.com/US/teens-spend-hours-screens-entertai... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/mar/02/nearly-four-in-10-university-students-addicted-to-smartphones-study-finds https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/mar/02/nearly-four-... [3] https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/05/01/606588504/americans-are-a-lonely-lot-and-young-people-bear-the-heaviest-burden?t=1645790947631 https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/05/01/6065885... https://www.bu.edu/articles/2021/campus-life-why-are-students-still-lonely/ https://www.bu.edu/articles/2021/campus-life-why-are-student... https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/jul/20/loneliness-britains-silent-plague-hurts-young-people-most https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/jul/20/lonelin... [4] https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/jun/13/young-americans-less-sex-study https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/jun/13/young-a... [5] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2767066?utm_campaign=articlePDF&utm_medium=articlePDFlink&utm_source=articlePDF&utm_content=jamanetworkopen.2020.3833 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle... Now, even though 2003 is already after the start cutoff date (a first major development being the web's post-1994 huge adoption), the contrast between it and say 2013 (in between which dates smartphones and social media were widely available) would already releal huge changes in those aspects. Except if the changes became invisible even to someone in contact with students in a kind of "boiling the frog" incremental familiarity (where it had been slowly but steadily increasing each year, but the infra-year difference didn't seem important).
- ghaff 5y ago
  I'm less inclined to draw broad generational generalizations but it's probably fair to say that a lot of things would have played out differently in a pre-mainstream Internet era.
- gjulianm 5y ago
  I don't agree with the implication that using Internet and smartphones make people asocial. If anything, I bet those techs helped people feel less isolated than they'd have felt without them.
  - coldtea 5y ago
    >those techs helped people feel less isolated You said it. Including before covid.
- SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
  This seems like one of those occasions where there'd be an "of course" for either result. Sort of an "absence makes the heart grow fonder"/"out of sight, out of mind" situation.
- amcoastal 5y ago
  Leave it to an old person to yell about technology ruining people while denying the simple science that some people might feel differently about socialization than others.
  - coldtea 5y ago
    And leave it to a young person to welcome any change as progress, and see technology not as a tool, but as a good in itself. >while denying the simple science that some people might feel differently about socialization than others. Yeah, It certainly is just "differently", can't be worse. That's why depression is sky high among the youngs, loneliness and isolation is reported as having rocketed, and so on (and that's already pre covid). Well, since it works out so well for them...
    - TheFreim 5y ago
      I'm a young fellow and I would generally agree with you. I'm sick of the rejection of people's opinions because they're "old" (aka more experienced). Beginning to take the advice and views of my elders seriously is what I think has helped make me so much more happy in my day to day life. I feel like I've been able to skip over many of the troubles my peers face.
- joelbondurant1 5y ago
- zwieback 5y ago
  Except that one of the data points was that kids who were in full-time school were happier, so it's probably got to do with home life. Full-time school + more parents/siblings at home.
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
> In fact, an almost identical number of students fell into each of the three categories: their mental wellbeing had improved; there had been no change; or they had experienced a deterioration to their wellbeing. This feels like a red flag on the conclusions. How does this compare to a normal time period? I wouldn’t be surprised if the random ups and downs of growing up normally resulted in a distribution where 1/3 of students claim they felt happier, 1/3 of students claimed they felt the same, and 1/3 of students felt worse than the prior year. Journalists are so desperate to publish hot takes on COVID that we’ve forgotten that people’s lives normally change over time.
- actually_a_dog 5y ago
  > How does this compare to a normal time period? I wouldn’t be surprised if the random ups and downs of growing up normally resulted in a distribution where 1/3 of students claim they felt happier, 1/3 of students claimed they felt the same, and 1/3 of students felt worse than the prior year. This sounds to me like a distinction without a difference. In both cases, the net result would be approximately 0 effect on the overall mental health of the population being studied.
  - Closi 5y ago
    > This sounds to me like a distinction without a difference. In both cases, the net result would be approximately 0 effect on the overall mental health of the population being studied. I believe OP is saying that the underlying assumption here is that students do not get happier during their time during university without lockdown. If for instance 2/3 students left university happier than when they started pre-lockdown/covid, this would need to be accounted for in any study to make it meaningful.
- andjd 5y ago
  My take is that this is a counterpoint to the dominant media narrative that covid and lockdowns have been detrimental to the mental heath of nearly every child, usually based on anecdata. So even if these results _aren't_ different from a normal year, that's still meaningful. I think this is the crux of their conclusions too: > While the pandemic has undoubtedly had negative consequences for many, it is important to keep in mind that this is not the case for all children and young people.
gunfighthacksaw 5y ago
The pandemic started towards the end of my masters and beyond the initial “oh shit” moment, I actually found it way better than I expected because for the first time in my life it was not weird for me to just stay at home, enjoy my own company and reduce socializing by a factor of 5 or more. Now when I actually have to interact with people it’s in a low enough volume that it’s enjoyable and not the crapshoot it used to be: OK or ordeal depending on the day.
- lordnacho 5y ago
  I can relate. During my studies I often felt like I ought to make the most of having people around. So much is made of the opportunity to meet people at uni, it feels odd to waste it. With a lockdown I think I'd be just fine at home or in a student hall, putting the most into studying.
  - lumost 5y ago
    Having just started an online masters, I've noticed that socialization can bias strongly towards "Purposeful" socialization e.g. A slack channel for discussing the class/assignments. Compared to my undergrad there were many times I think I just sat around drinking/watching movies because there was a social group doing it. I wonder if the lack of purpose in such activities grinds on students over time.
- GoodJokes 5y ago
- throwawayboise 5y ago
  Yeah I think for some people, the lockdowns really opened their eyes that a simple life spent mostly at home can be enjoyable, and something they want to continue. Of course for some others, who thrive on activity and a lot of social interaction, the lockdowns were miserable.
- klyrs 5y ago
  Among my peers, there's a pretty big split between people who have a social life outside of work, and people who don't. The folks who have a family, especially, see time spent commuting as a detriment to both work and family. For those highly social coworkers, the lockdown (and enduring resistance to commuting) has been a big negative.
lysecret 5y ago
Not sure if this was really because of the pandemic but for me the last 3 years have been life changing in a positive way. A feeling of "not beeing the only one feeling lonely sometimes" I think helped for sure.
pixelmoth 5y ago
Makes complete sense to me - I was able to focus on doing my best work, and really fell in love with Computer Science for the first time.
sebow 5y ago
Ugh... 'happier' is a strong conclusion.If I had to guess the actual effect probably is something along the lines of people having more time for themselves, taking a break from society, and realizing they're stressed for no reason most of the time. This is not to say that the lockdown made anybody happier.I'm willing to bet the causal factor is the fact that people experienced a little bit of isolation, "me-time", took a break from the daily noise(especially the majority of people who spend too much time on social media). I want to see the more in-depth numbers: how many of those who reportedly stated that they felt happier during lockdown were using social media and/or were 'over-socializing' to the point that their own happiness was tied to other people's expectations?
draw_down 5y ago
pembrook 5y ago
So 1 in 3 felt happier, 1 in 3 felt more depressed, and the remaining 1 in 3 felt no major change. Sounds pretty much like a normal (gaussian) distribution, or basically a non-story. Guessing if they measured satisfaction on a scale, the majority were clustered near the "no major change" camp, as with any gaussian curve. As we already know, it turns out humans can adapt to things. By phrasing the headline result as "1 in 3 felt happier," it creates a narrative where there likely isn't one. You imagine the 33% were this solid block of people feeling much happier. But, re: the gaussian distribution, its likely very few were at the extremes, and most were clustered towards the middle. Textbook clickbait. It invites you to react with your emotional, anecdotal feelings about what this means to you, as if there was any interesting finding there.
- huijzer 5y ago
  > So 1 in 3 felt happier, 1 in 3 felt more depressed, and the remaining 1 in 3 felt no major change. > > Sounds pretty much like a normal (gaussian) distribution, or basically a non-story. For a Gaussian, I would have expected 1 felt worse, 6 felt the same and 1 felt better. The current numbers sound more like an uniform distribution.
- lemmsjid 5y ago
  The article contextualizes itself at the beginning. A large number of people believe the effect of the lockdowns on children was not a normal distribution but was skewed negative. So a normal distribution is news. This does not discount your argument that emphasizing the positive side of the distribution is clickbait, but if it is positioning itself as emphasizing that positive side to a population who thinks it is all negative, then I think it’s fine. For me textbook clickbait is an article that does not substantiate the promise of the headline, or one that comically exaggerates the excitement of the information in the article. There are people who believe the lockdowns were wholly an atrocity on children, and this article substantiates a counterbalance without going all the way (after all, the headline itself tells you that 2/3 children were unaffected or negatively affected).
  - bavell 5y ago
bleuchase 5y ago
What a stupid claim. Based on useless self reported data. Also their “data” is two years old: > More than 17,000 students took part in the June/July 2020 survey, during the tail end of the first national lockdown Think the young people might report feeling different now?
- sweezyjeezy 5y ago
  For the first lockdown I think I would have gone neutral - there was a certain novelty factor that made it kind of interesting - my friends all banded on Discord, everyday experiences were new, and kind exciting in a weird way. The third lockdown (late 2020 - Apr 2021) was one of the worst experiences I can remember, probably the lowest I've been in the last decade.
- rjh29 5y ago
  The 'first national lockdown' is key I think - the first one was fairly novel, you got a break from school/work in some cases, more time with the kids, you felt safe. It was (for me at least) the second and third that really hurt mentally, because you wondered when it was ever going to end.
jmyeet 5y ago
The paramters: > Ms Soneson and colleagues explored this issue using the OxWell Student Survey, a large, school-based survey of students aged eight to 18 years living in England. More than 17,000 students took part in the June/July 2020 survey, A lot of people have spoken about the negative effects on children of lockdowns, social isolation and so forth. I'm glad to see a study pointing to the positives. Why? Because for a lot of people high school (in particular) is absolutely horrible normally. In the US in particular we have a culture where bullying is tolerated ("boys will be boys", "toughen up") and the victims of bullying are treated like potential mass shooters. It's actually like there is a systemic acceptance that some children will be chewed up and spit out for the social benefit of others. If that's not a microcosm of US culture I don't know what is. Another finding comes to mine: girls tend to do better in same-sex schools. Boys tend to do better in mixed-sex schools. Again this seems like tacit acceptance that many of us are OK with girls being "expendable" for male student outcomes. One upside of the pandemic is that it's challenged a lot of norms, such as having to be in the office. Likewise, the worker shortage we have now is probably the best thing for worker rights in the last 50 years.
- mwigdahl 5y ago
  While I don't doubt that bullying is tolerated in a lot of schools in the US, my son was recently physically bullied and the administration was very quick in setting up opportunities for natural intervention (doing so in a way that didn't single him out even further as weak or a snitch). In addition, your statement that girls are being treated as expendable to promote male outcomes flies in the face of the clear evidence that the current US educational system favors girls over boys -- heavily by 8th grade (https://ed.stanford.edu/news/new-stanford-education-study-shows-where-boys-and-girls-do-better-math-english https://ed.stanford.edu/news/new-stanford-education-study-sh...). _Why_ this is happening is not super clear, but the current system is certainly not throwing girls under the bus to improve outcomes for boys.
jimmyjazz14 5y ago
If there is one thing I have learned its that my own self reporting on my happiness is extremely variable and unreliable. Someone could have asked me at many periods during the last few years if I was happy and I might have reported I was but I know for a fact that deep down my mental health was taking a tole even if I didn't notice it at the time. So yeah, self reported mental health status should probably be looked at with a skeptical eye.
mysore 5y ago
lockdown made me more depressed than ever. I had a breakup right before the lockdown and ended up overdosing on MDMA right at the start of it in april 2020. Overall haven't been able to recover emotionally or physically but I did get a better job that pays better than any job i've ever had. Eventually moved back in with my parents because it seemed pointless to live in a tiny new york appartment all alone and pay high rent. Now i feel stuck and I'm not sure where to go. I was thinking of traveling in south america because the time zones are the same. I've been feeling like life is kinda pointless. It's just the same thing on repeat everyday. It seems like the pandemic is never going away and we just have to adapt as a species. Things seem bleak in america. Everyone is isolated. There's a housing crisis, a climate crisis, war and supply chain shortages everywhere. Not sure what the point of this comment is, just wanted to vent. I should feel happier than ever because of my new job but I've been depressed ever since my ex blocked me. I emailed her daily for about a year but she never responded so i stopped.
- amznbyebyebye 5y ago
  Sorry to hear that man. It sounds like you’re young-ish. Time heals, even though it sucks right now, and life has a way of sending someone else down your way and you can make each other happy.. Best of luck friend
- throwawayboise 5y ago
  Get out of your parent's house. It is a daily reminder that you're not facing life as an adult. You don't have to go to an expensive city. If you are working remotely you can live anywhere and there are plenty of nice towns where housing is not insanely expensive. Join a gym or a hiking club or something to get some physical activity and maybe meet some new friends.
  - kortilla 5y ago
    > Get out of your parent's house. It is a daily reminder that you're not facing life as an adult. This is complete bullshit. The US is a major outlier with the societal pressure to move out for no reason. It makes for poor family connections, wasted money, and wasted resources in general.
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_fat_santa 5y ago
Looking back, lockdowns sucked in the moment. But when I look at it in aggregate, my life improved dramatically. A big part of that was prior to the pandemic I would hit the clubs and bars every weekend. With bars and clubs closed I was forced to do other things, like go outside to nature. After a while the clubs re-opened but I realized I was no longer drawn to go to. My life on the weekends started to revolve around going outdoors rather than getting smashed. Eventually I made the biggest change and moved to Colorado to persue more outdoors. If the pandemic never happened I would probably still be living in the city going to bars and clubs. So while there are many negative things about the past two years, for me it ended in a net positive.
- 71a54xd 5y ago
  Definitely a bit of dejavu here - I'm getting ready to do the same thing and had a very similar experience during the pandemic. I no longer really like doing crowded loud social things, just seems constructed and unhealthy (maybe I'm just feeling old in my late 20's?). Decided to axe my NYC lease and move to CO.
- chucksta 5y ago
  I was just talking about this yesterday, I got burned by what would have been pre-pandemic, a normal night out. I imagine there are a lot of people who lost that casual tolerance and aren't really willing to rebuilt it
5350-uiop-1130 5y ago
Problem with these survey is you don't really appreciate the problems you DONT have. We are fickle, easy to forget. One day stuck in traffic or in a crowded bus/metro is enough to make you count your blessings. Speaking about WFH.
- rootusrootus 5y ago
  Yep. Every two months I drive my mother to a medical appointment not far from where my office is (officially; the building we work in is closing for good). By the time I get back home I'm thinking "I used to do this every day, I'm so glad I don't any more..."
blah_humbug 5y ago
Let's repeat that survey, across all age groups, and for the current month. I'm especially curious what the eponymous "granny" has to say about it. I'm also very curious to hear what parents have to say about their kids being herded to a screens-only life at absurdly young ages. I know this was already happening, but it has been vastly accelerated. I can only hope this means we will get to the natural maxima and swing back the other way sooner.
egberts1 5y ago
two of three young people did not get happier shortly after COVID lockdown: NEXT!
rossdavidh 5y ago
Well if they're 8 to 18, then a sizeable number of them were having to go to school otherwise. In other words, one in three prefer staying home to going to school. The only surprise is that it's not higher.
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smilebot 5y ago
So, two in three young people say they felt sad or more or less the same during lockdown.
jdrc 5y ago
schools are constant social pressure, comparing yourself, and feeling inadequate. no wonder so many kids felt relief , ignorance is a bliss while you are young at least. But i m afraid they will invent new stupid games with online tools too.
hungryforcodes 5y ago
...in the UK.
jdlyga 5y ago
During lockdown, my wife and I left Manhattan to stay with my parents in the suburbs temporarily, and so did my sister. We thought it was going to be a couple weeks, and it turned into 3 months. I really enjoyed having the whole family together. We ate dinner together every night, cooked for each other, went on walks. Of course we got in each others way sometimes. But overall I do miss that time, and wish it was possible for our family to live like that.
- justinmchase 5y ago
  I can't know your full situation but I'd like to think its still very possible!
justinmchase 5y ago
That's a weird way of saying 2/3 people didn't feel happier.
imwillofficial 5y ago
Shitthatneverhappened.txt I don’t believe this headline for a second
stakkur 5y ago
Over a year and a half ago, a small number of students, in one country. I'm beginning to wonder when we hit the tipping point when science reporting devolved into clickbait.
AlwaysRock 5y ago
I don't think I was happier but it gave me the chance to work fully remote which has been an absolute net positive in my life.
LoveMortuus 5y ago
I think people forget that the hyper-connectivity that we have today with the coming of internet is an incredibly new thing. I'd wager that even during the lockdown people interacted with more people then people in history interacted without a lockdown. In consideration is not only internet but also cars and other forms of fast travel.
bakuninsbart 5y ago
As a personal anecdote, I suffered in lots of ways during lockdown, but have never had such successful university semesters before. I'm suffering from (social) anxiety, so going to classes every morning was harder than some of the actual curriculums. But there were very few ways of passing while missing attendance. Often times, I'd go strong until about the last third of the semester and then just fail multiple courses. If not for Germany having free uni, I'd have had to give up on my degree for quite a while. Covid was definetely not good for my anxiety overall, and being socially isolated hurt a lot too. I couldn't see my girlfriend for months at a time, because we live in different countries in the EU. But for my studies, it did wonders. Lectures being recorded enabled me to watch them on demand and in different speeds. Online tutorials/seminars had far less of a hurdle to participate in. There was suddenly a record of most interactions over the course of a semester, making it far easier to prepare for exams. My job also moved online, so I saved a total average commute of 2 hours a day, which I was able to also invest in studying. Now I'm very close to finishing, but next semester will be back in person, and while I'm a bit nervous about it, the last 2 years of actually reaching some form of success paved the way to control my anxiety enough to finish I think. While I am very happy that things are opening up again, and some normalcy is restored, I really hope that we don't just go back to the old, because there were a number of things wrong, and I think a lot of it could be rectified quite easily.
lostgame 5y ago
The only reason I suffered during lockdown was due to an abusive and gaslighting as hell roommate who actually permanently drove me away from ever having roommates again. Otherwise, it would have kicked ass. Working from home these days, it’s honestly not that different from what it would have been anyway, had I not been dealing with them. I truly love the ability to, I dunno; even just listen to my vinyl over my nice sound system while I work - or just making food at home…all the benefits and none of the loss whatsoever. Post pandemic life as a WFH coder kicks ass! :) Especially since I make some decent money on the side as a rapper/producer - it works so well. If I have an idea at work, I can easily take 30min off and capture it with my full studio rig. It’s amazing. Zero loss. Full gain. Literally, there’s the drag of my life before the pandemic, and the joy of it after. I’d say during, too - but that asshole of an ex roommate really killed 2020 for me, sadly. :(
screye 5y ago
> The highest proportions of students who reported improved mental wellbeing were among those who were in school every day (39%) and most days (35%), while the highest proportion of students who reported worse wellbeing were those who attended just once or twice (39%). So, the students least affected by the lockdown were happy during the lockdown? I am not sure what to conclude here.
dionidium 5y ago
I have sometimes joked that there's a kind of "socialist" whose politics seem mostly to be centered around the notion that in a post-capitalist socialist utopia they'd somehow just be able to stay home and not participate in anything. This is a joke, but I do wonder if there isn't a kind of person who, whether we call it introversion or whatever, just isn't at all happy in the kind of modern environment where you have to interact a lot with strangers, where you have to be in a customer service or large office environment everyday, where you constantly have to be moving forward and mingling and so on. They just want to...coast. And they get the sense, somehow, that capitalism is to blame for how they feel, but, I don't know, maybe it's modernity itself.
- ikr678 5y ago
  Ambition and the pressure to always be ambitious has become kind of a performative dance you have to do to be taken seriously in certain circles. Coasting is looked down upon.
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zmmmmm 5y ago
I can believe this certainly in the first wave of lockdowns. I would wonder a lot however what happened in the 2nd/3rd and so on for places that had them. I do find it slightly annoying that there seems to be a default uncritical acceptance of the view that lockdown was universally terrible for kids mental health when I know first hand of several examples where it wasn't at all. I feel like some amount of that is a fig leaf over the fact that many kids are living in unhealthy environments at home to begin with. So lockdown means they are exposed to more of that, but it's not the lockdown causing the harm it is the home environment where they are exposed to harmful factors.
skd23423 5y ago
The best thing happened to my programming job and mental health and physical too
lfuller 5y ago
This study was from the first lockdown period in June / July 2020, which I expect not to be strongly correlated with the way people feel now. In my experience and from talking with friends and family, it wasn't the initial lockdown that took a toll on their mental health - it was the sustained lockdowns over a two year period. The first lockdown was stressful and there was a lot of uncertainty, but it was also novel and exciting in a way with a sense of the entire world coming together to overcome something. After three or four lockdowns that no longer held.
somewhereoutth 5y ago
Mental health is built upon physical health. Only by protecting physical health can you support mental health.
GekkePrutser 5y ago
Wow I can't imagine that. For me COVID was the worst time in my life. And it still is until we are fully back to normal. But I am very prone to depression and living alone in a foreign country didn't help..
paskozdilar 5y ago
I can imagine lockdown being very pleasant for people who own their own home, live alone (or with close family of their choice) and can work remotely without any issues. Too bad the government that locked us up doesn't care whether or not everyone has those things.

Of course. As students (born in the internet+smartphone era) they were primed all their life to feel freer in asocial cocooning

chrisseaton 5y ago
> As students (born in the internet+smartphone era) they were primed all their life to feel freer in asocial cocooning Don't know what kind of students you're thinking about - I can't imagine anyone more intensely social than a group of freshers?
- coldtea 5y ago
  That's maybe because you don't have experience with past groups of freshers to compare modern ones to...
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    Been involved with universities since 2003.
    - coldtea 5y ago
      And yet you've managed not to see any change any outgoingness, loneliness, time spent on screen, etc., in students and teenagers, despite those being registered in all kinds of studies and polls? Heck, even the sex has been going down... [1] https://abcnews.go.com/US/teens-spend-hours-screens-entertainment-day-report/story?id=66607555 https://abcnews.go.com/US/teens-spend-hours-screens-entertai... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/mar/02/nearly-four-in-10-university-students-addicted-to-smartphones-study-finds https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/mar/02/nearly-four-... [3] https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/05/01/606588504/americans-are-a-lonely-lot-and-young-people-bear-the-heaviest-burden?t=1645790947631 https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/05/01/6065885... https://www.bu.edu/articles/2021/campus-life-why-are-students-still-lonely/ https://www.bu.edu/articles/2021/campus-life-why-are-student... https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/jul/20/loneliness-britains-silent-plague-hurts-young-people-most https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/jul/20/lonelin... [4] https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/jun/13/young-americans-less-sex-study https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/jun/13/young-a... [5] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2767066?utm_campaign=articlePDF&utm_medium=articlePDFlink&utm_source=articlePDF&utm_content=jamanetworkopen.2020.3833 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle... Now, even though 2003 is already after the start cutoff date (a first major development being the web's post-1994 huge adoption), the contrast between it and say 2013 (in between which dates smartphones and social media were widely available) would already releal huge changes in those aspects. Except if the changes became invisible even to someone in contact with students in a kind of "boiling the frog" incremental familiarity (where it had been slowly but steadily increasing each year, but the infra-year difference didn't seem important).
ghaff 5y ago
I'm less inclined to draw broad generational generalizations but it's probably fair to say that a lot of things would have played out differently in a pre-mainstream Internet era.
gjulianm 5y ago
I don't agree with the implication that using Internet and smartphones make people asocial. If anything, I bet those techs helped people feel less isolated than they'd have felt without them.
- coldtea 5y ago
  >those techs helped people feel less isolated You said it. Including before covid.
SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
This seems like one of those occasions where there'd be an "of course" for either result. Sort of an "absence makes the heart grow fonder"/"out of sight, out of mind" situation.
amcoastal 5y ago
Leave it to an old person to yell about technology ruining people while denying the simple science that some people might feel differently about socialization than others.
- coldtea 5y ago
  And leave it to a young person to welcome any change as progress, and see technology not as a tool, but as a good in itself. >while denying the simple science that some people might feel differently about socialization than others. Yeah, It certainly is just "differently", can't be worse. That's why depression is sky high among the youngs, loneliness and isolation is reported as having rocketed, and so on (and that's already pre covid). Well, since it works out so well for them...
  - TheFreim 5y ago
    I'm a young fellow and I would generally agree with you. I'm sick of the rejection of people's opinions because they're "old" (aka more experienced). Beginning to take the advice and views of my elders seriously is what I think has helped make me so much more happy in my day to day life. I feel like I've been able to skip over many of the troubles my peers face.
joelbondurant1 5y ago
zwieback 5y ago
Except that one of the data points was that kids who were in full-time school were happier, so it's probably got to do with home life. Full-time school + more parents/siblings at home.

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

> In fact, an almost identical number of students fell into each of the three categories: their mental wellbeing had improved; there had been no change; or they had experienced a deterioration to their wellbeing. This feels like a red flag on the conclusions. How does this compare to a normal time period? I wouldn’t be surprised if the random ups and downs of growing up normally resulted in a distribution where 1/3 of students claim they felt happier, 1/3 of students claimed they felt the same, and 1/3 of students felt worse than the prior year. Journalists are so desperate to publish hot takes on COVID that we’ve forgotten that people’s lives normally change over time.

actually_a_dog 5y ago
> How does this compare to a normal time period? I wouldn’t be surprised if the random ups and downs of growing up normally resulted in a distribution where 1/3 of students claim they felt happier, 1/3 of students claimed they felt the same, and 1/3 of students felt worse than the prior year. This sounds to me like a distinction without a difference. In both cases, the net result would be approximately 0 effect on the overall mental health of the population being studied.
- Closi 5y ago
  > This sounds to me like a distinction without a difference. In both cases, the net result would be approximately 0 effect on the overall mental health of the population being studied. I believe OP is saying that the underlying assumption here is that students do not get happier during their time during university without lockdown. If for instance 2/3 students left university happier than when they started pre-lockdown/covid, this would need to be accounted for in any study to make it meaningful.
andjd 5y ago
My take is that this is a counterpoint to the dominant media narrative that covid and lockdowns have been detrimental to the mental heath of nearly every child, usually based on anecdata. So even if these results _aren't_ different from a normal year, that's still meaningful. I think this is the crux of their conclusions too: > While the pandemic has undoubtedly had negative consequences for many, it is important to keep in mind that this is not the case for all children and young people.

gunfighthacksaw 5y ago

The pandemic started towards the end of my masters and beyond the initial “oh shit” moment, I actually found it way better than I expected because for the first time in my life it was not weird for me to just stay at home, enjoy my own company and reduce socializing by a factor of 5 or more. Now when I actually have to interact with people it’s in a low enough volume that it’s enjoyable and not the crapshoot it used to be: OK or ordeal depending on the day.

lordnacho 5y ago
I can relate. During my studies I often felt like I ought to make the most of having people around. So much is made of the opportunity to meet people at uni, it feels odd to waste it. With a lockdown I think I'd be just fine at home or in a student hall, putting the most into studying.
- lumost 5y ago
  Having just started an online masters, I've noticed that socialization can bias strongly towards "Purposeful" socialization e.g. A slack channel for discussing the class/assignments. Compared to my undergrad there were many times I think I just sat around drinking/watching movies because there was a social group doing it. I wonder if the lack of purpose in such activities grinds on students over time.
GoodJokes 5y ago
throwawayboise 5y ago
Yeah I think for some people, the lockdowns really opened their eyes that a simple life spent mostly at home can be enjoyable, and something they want to continue. Of course for some others, who thrive on activity and a lot of social interaction, the lockdowns were miserable.
klyrs 5y ago
Among my peers, there's a pretty big split between people who have a social life outside of work, and people who don't. The folks who have a family, especially, see time spent commuting as a detriment to both work and family. For those highly social coworkers, the lockdown (and enduring resistance to commuting) has been a big negative.

lysecret 5y ago

Not sure if this was really because of the pandemic but for me the last 3 years have been life changing in a positive way. A feeling of "not beeing the only one feeling lonely sometimes" I think helped for sure.

pixelmoth 5y ago

Makes complete sense to me - I was able to focus on doing my best work, and really fell in love with Computer Science for the first time.

sebow 5y ago

Ugh... 'happier' is a strong conclusion.If I had to guess the actual effect probably is something along the lines of people having more time for themselves, taking a break from society, and realizing they're stressed for no reason most of the time. This is not to say that the lockdown made anybody happier.I'm willing to bet the causal factor is the fact that people experienced a little bit of isolation, "me-time", took a break from the daily noise(especially the majority of people who spend too much time on social media). I want to see the more in-depth numbers: how many of those who reportedly stated that they felt happier during lockdown were using social media and/or were 'over-socializing' to the point that their own happiness was tied to other people's expectations?

draw_down 5y ago

pembrook 5y ago

So 1 in 3 felt happier, 1 in 3 felt more depressed, and the remaining 1 in 3 felt no major change. Sounds pretty much like a normal (gaussian) distribution, or basically a non-story. Guessing if they measured satisfaction on a scale, the majority were clustered near the "no major change" camp, as with any gaussian curve. As we already know, it turns out humans can adapt to things. By phrasing the headline result as "1 in 3 felt happier," it creates a narrative where there likely isn't one. You imagine the 33% were this solid block of people feeling much happier. But, re: the gaussian distribution, its likely very few were at the extremes, and most were clustered towards the middle. Textbook clickbait. It invites you to react with your emotional, anecdotal feelings about what this means to you, as if there was any interesting finding there.

huijzer 5y ago
> So 1 in 3 felt happier, 1 in 3 felt more depressed, and the remaining 1 in 3 felt no major change. > > Sounds pretty much like a normal (gaussian) distribution, or basically a non-story. For a Gaussian, I would have expected 1 felt worse, 6 felt the same and 1 felt better. The current numbers sound more like an uniform distribution.
lemmsjid 5y ago
The article contextualizes itself at the beginning. A large number of people believe the effect of the lockdowns on children was not a normal distribution but was skewed negative. So a normal distribution is news. This does not discount your argument that emphasizing the positive side of the distribution is clickbait, but if it is positioning itself as emphasizing that positive side to a population who thinks it is all negative, then I think it’s fine. For me textbook clickbait is an article that does not substantiate the promise of the headline, or one that comically exaggerates the excitement of the information in the article. There are people who believe the lockdowns were wholly an atrocity on children, and this article substantiates a counterbalance without going all the way (after all, the headline itself tells you that 2/3 children were unaffected or negatively affected).
- bavell 5y ago

bleuchase 5y ago

What a stupid claim. Based on useless self reported data. Also their “data” is two years old: > More than 17,000 students took part in the June/July 2020 survey, during the tail end of the first national lockdown Think the young people might report feeling different now?

sweezyjeezy 5y ago
For the first lockdown I think I would have gone neutral - there was a certain novelty factor that made it kind of interesting - my friends all banded on Discord, everyday experiences were new, and kind exciting in a weird way. The third lockdown (late 2020 - Apr 2021) was one of the worst experiences I can remember, probably the lowest I've been in the last decade.
rjh29 5y ago
The 'first national lockdown' is key I think - the first one was fairly novel, you got a break from school/work in some cases, more time with the kids, you felt safe. It was (for me at least) the second and third that really hurt mentally, because you wondered when it was ever going to end.

jmyeet 5y ago

The paramters: > Ms Soneson and colleagues explored this issue using the OxWell Student Survey, a large, school-based survey of students aged eight to 18 years living in England. More than 17,000 students took part in the June/July 2020 survey, A lot of people have spoken about the negative effects on children of lockdowns, social isolation and so forth. I'm glad to see a study pointing to the positives. Why? Because for a lot of people high school (in particular) is absolutely horrible normally. In the US in particular we have a culture where bullying is tolerated ("boys will be boys", "toughen up") and the victims of bullying are treated like potential mass shooters. It's actually like there is a systemic acceptance that some children will be chewed up and spit out for the social benefit of others. If that's not a microcosm of US culture I don't know what is. Another finding comes to mine: girls tend to do better in same-sex schools. Boys tend to do better in mixed-sex schools. Again this seems like tacit acceptance that many of us are OK with girls being "expendable" for male student outcomes. One upside of the pandemic is that it's challenged a lot of norms, such as having to be in the office. Likewise, the worker shortage we have now is probably the best thing for worker rights in the last 50 years.

mwigdahl 5y ago
While I don't doubt that bullying is tolerated in a lot of schools in the US, my son was recently physically bullied and the administration was very quick in setting up opportunities for natural intervention (doing so in a way that didn't single him out even further as weak or a snitch). In addition, your statement that girls are being treated as expendable to promote male outcomes flies in the face of the clear evidence that the current US educational system favors girls over boys -- heavily by 8th grade (https://ed.stanford.edu/news/new-stanford-education-study-shows-where-boys-and-girls-do-better-math-english https://ed.stanford.edu/news/new-stanford-education-study-sh...). _Why_ this is happening is not super clear, but the current system is certainly not throwing girls under the bus to improve outcomes for boys.

jimmyjazz14 5y ago

If there is one thing I have learned its that my own self reporting on my happiness is extremely variable and unreliable. Someone could have asked me at many periods during the last few years if I was happy and I might have reported I was but I know for a fact that deep down my mental health was taking a tole even if I didn't notice it at the time. So yeah, self reported mental health status should probably be looked at with a skeptical eye.

mysore 5y ago

lockdown made me more depressed than ever. I had a breakup right before the lockdown and ended up overdosing on MDMA right at the start of it in april 2020. Overall haven't been able to recover emotionally or physically but I did get a better job that pays better than any job i've ever had. Eventually moved back in with my parents because it seemed pointless to live in a tiny new york appartment all alone and pay high rent. Now i feel stuck and I'm not sure where to go. I was thinking of traveling in south america because the time zones are the same. I've been feeling like life is kinda pointless. It's just the same thing on repeat everyday. It seems like the pandemic is never going away and we just have to adapt as a species. Things seem bleak in america. Everyone is isolated. There's a housing crisis, a climate crisis, war and supply chain shortages everywhere. Not sure what the point of this comment is, just wanted to vent. I should feel happier than ever because of my new job but I've been depressed ever since my ex blocked me. I emailed her daily for about a year but she never responded so i stopped.

amznbyebyebye 5y ago
Sorry to hear that man. It sounds like you’re young-ish. Time heals, even though it sucks right now, and life has a way of sending someone else down your way and you can make each other happy.. Best of luck friend
throwawayboise 5y ago
Get out of your parent's house. It is a daily reminder that you're not facing life as an adult. You don't have to go to an expensive city. If you are working remotely you can live anywhere and there are plenty of nice towns where housing is not insanely expensive. Join a gym or a hiking club or something to get some physical activity and maybe meet some new friends.
- kortilla 5y ago
  > Get out of your parent's house. It is a daily reminder that you're not facing life as an adult. This is complete bullshit. The US is a major outlier with the societal pressure to move out for no reason. It makes for poor family connections, wasted money, and wasted resources in general.

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_fat_santa 5y ago

Looking back, lockdowns sucked in the moment. But when I look at it in aggregate, my life improved dramatically. A big part of that was prior to the pandemic I would hit the clubs and bars every weekend. With bars and clubs closed I was forced to do other things, like go outside to nature. After a while the clubs re-opened but I realized I was no longer drawn to go to. My life on the weekends started to revolve around going outdoors rather than getting smashed. Eventually I made the biggest change and moved to Colorado to persue more outdoors. If the pandemic never happened I would probably still be living in the city going to bars and clubs. So while there are many negative things about the past two years, for me it ended in a net positive.

71a54xd 5y ago
Definitely a bit of dejavu here - I'm getting ready to do the same thing and had a very similar experience during the pandemic. I no longer really like doing crowded loud social things, just seems constructed and unhealthy (maybe I'm just feeling old in my late 20's?). Decided to axe my NYC lease and move to CO.
chucksta 5y ago
I was just talking about this yesterday, I got burned by what would have been pre-pandemic, a normal night out. I imagine there are a lot of people who lost that casual tolerance and aren't really willing to rebuilt it

5350-uiop-1130 5y ago

Problem with these survey is you don't really appreciate the problems you DONT have. We are fickle, easy to forget. One day stuck in traffic or in a crowded bus/metro is enough to make you count your blessings. Speaking about WFH.

rootusrootus 5y ago
Yep. Every two months I drive my mother to a medical appointment not far from where my office is (officially; the building we work in is closing for good). By the time I get back home I'm thinking "I used to do this every day, I'm so glad I don't any more..."

blah_humbug 5y ago

Let's repeat that survey, across all age groups, and for the current month. I'm especially curious what the eponymous "granny" has to say about it. I'm also very curious to hear what parents have to say about their kids being herded to a screens-only life at absurdly young ages. I know this was already happening, but it has been vastly accelerated. I can only hope this means we will get to the natural maxima and swing back the other way sooner.

egberts1 5y ago

two of three young people did not get happier shortly after COVID lockdown: NEXT!

rossdavidh 5y ago

Well if they're 8 to 18, then a sizeable number of them were having to go to school otherwise. In other words, one in three prefer staying home to going to school. The only surprise is that it's not higher.

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smilebot 5y ago

So, two in three young people say they felt sad or more or less the same during lockdown.

jdrc 5y ago

schools are constant social pressure, comparing yourself, and feeling inadequate. no wonder so many kids felt relief , ignorance is a bliss while you are young at least. But i m afraid they will invent new stupid games with online tools too.

hungryforcodes 5y ago

...in the UK.

jdlyga 5y ago

During lockdown, my wife and I left Manhattan to stay with my parents in the suburbs temporarily, and so did my sister. We thought it was going to be a couple weeks, and it turned into 3 months. I really enjoyed having the whole family together. We ate dinner together every night, cooked for each other, went on walks. Of course we got in each others way sometimes. But overall I do miss that time, and wish it was possible for our family to live like that.

justinmchase 5y ago
I can't know your full situation but I'd like to think its still very possible!

justinmchase 5y ago

That's a weird way of saying 2/3 people didn't feel happier.

imwillofficial 5y ago

Shitthatneverhappened.txt I don’t believe this headline for a second

stakkur 5y ago

Over a year and a half ago, a small number of students, in one country. I'm beginning to wonder when we hit the tipping point when science reporting devolved into clickbait.

AlwaysRock 5y ago

I don't think I was happier but it gave me the chance to work fully remote which has been an absolute net positive in my life.

LoveMortuus 5y ago

I think people forget that the hyper-connectivity that we have today with the coming of internet is an incredibly new thing. I'd wager that even during the lockdown people interacted with more people then people in history interacted without a lockdown. In consideration is not only internet but also cars and other forms of fast travel.

bakuninsbart 5y ago

As a personal anecdote, I suffered in lots of ways during lockdown, but have never had such successful university semesters before. I'm suffering from (social) anxiety, so going to classes every morning was harder than some of the actual curriculums. But there were very few ways of passing while missing attendance. Often times, I'd go strong until about the last third of the semester and then just fail multiple courses. If not for Germany having free uni, I'd have had to give up on my degree for quite a while. Covid was definetely not good for my anxiety overall, and being socially isolated hurt a lot too. I couldn't see my girlfriend for months at a time, because we live in different countries in the EU. But for my studies, it did wonders. Lectures being recorded enabled me to watch them on demand and in different speeds. Online tutorials/seminars had far less of a hurdle to participate in. There was suddenly a record of most interactions over the course of a semester, making it far easier to prepare for exams. My job also moved online, so I saved a total average commute of 2 hours a day, which I was able to also invest in studying. Now I'm very close to finishing, but next semester will be back in person, and while I'm a bit nervous about it, the last 2 years of actually reaching some form of success paved the way to control my anxiety enough to finish I think. While I am very happy that things are opening up again, and some normalcy is restored, I really hope that we don't just go back to the old, because there were a number of things wrong, and I think a lot of it could be rectified quite easily.

lostgame 5y ago

The only reason I suffered during lockdown was due to an abusive and gaslighting as hell roommate who actually permanently drove me away from ever having roommates again. Otherwise, it would have kicked ass. Working from home these days, it’s honestly not that different from what it would have been anyway, had I not been dealing with them. I truly love the ability to, I dunno; even just listen to my vinyl over my nice sound system while I work - or just making food at home…all the benefits and none of the loss whatsoever. Post pandemic life as a WFH coder kicks ass! :) Especially since I make some decent money on the side as a rapper/producer - it works so well. If I have an idea at work, I can easily take 30min off and capture it with my full studio rig. It’s amazing. Zero loss. Full gain. Literally, there’s the drag of my life before the pandemic, and the joy of it after. I’d say during, too - but that asshole of an ex roommate really killed 2020 for me, sadly. :(

screye 5y ago

> The highest proportions of students who reported improved mental wellbeing were among those who were in school every day (39%) and most days (35%), while the highest proportion of students who reported worse wellbeing were those who attended just once or twice (39%). So, the students least affected by the lockdown were happy during the lockdown? I am not sure what to conclude here.

dionidium 5y ago

I have sometimes joked that there's a kind of "socialist" whose politics seem mostly to be centered around the notion that in a post-capitalist socialist utopia they'd somehow just be able to stay home and not participate in anything. This is a joke, but I do wonder if there isn't a kind of person who, whether we call it introversion or whatever, just isn't at all happy in the kind of modern environment where you have to interact a lot with strangers, where you have to be in a customer service or large office environment everyday, where you constantly have to be moving forward and mingling and so on. They just want to...coast. And they get the sense, somehow, that capitalism is to blame for how they feel, but, I don't know, maybe it's modernity itself.

ikr678 5y ago
Ambition and the pressure to always be ambitious has become kind of a performative dance you have to do to be taken seriously in certain circles. Coasting is looked down upon.

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zmmmmm 5y ago

I can believe this certainly in the first wave of lockdowns. I would wonder a lot however what happened in the 2nd/3rd and so on for places that had them. I do find it slightly annoying that there seems to be a default uncritical acceptance of the view that lockdown was universally terrible for kids mental health when I know first hand of several examples where it wasn't at all. I feel like some amount of that is a fig leaf over the fact that many kids are living in unhealthy environments at home to begin with. So lockdown means they are exposed to more of that, but it's not the lockdown causing the harm it is the home environment where they are exposed to harmful factors.

skd23423 5y ago

The best thing happened to my programming job and mental health and physical too

lfuller 5y ago

This study was from the first lockdown period in June / July 2020, which I expect not to be strongly correlated with the way people feel now. In my experience and from talking with friends and family, it wasn't the initial lockdown that took a toll on their mental health - it was the sustained lockdowns over a two year period. The first lockdown was stressful and there was a lot of uncertainty, but it was also novel and exciting in a way with a sense of the entire world coming together to overcome something. After three or four lockdowns that no longer held.

somewhereoutth 5y ago

Mental health is built upon physical health. Only by protecting physical health can you support mental health.

GekkePrutser 5y ago

Wow I can't imagine that. For me COVID was the worst time in my life. And it still is until we are fully back to normal. But I am very prone to depression and living alone in a foreign country didn't help..

paskozdilar 5y ago

I can imagine lockdown being very pleasant for people who own their own home, live alone (or with close family of their choice) and can work remotely without any issues. Too bad the government that locked us up doesn't care whether or not everyone has those things.