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Jack Ryan

Professor Thomas

ENG 1201

3/21/2021

The Effects of Quarantine on Teen Mental Health

Stereotypically, Teenagers have always had high stress levels due to peer pressure and

internal struggles. Through the years, the introduction of technology and smartphones has

enhanced those levels. The pandemic that swept the globe has caused an enormous amount of

stress upon people of all ages, notably affecting teenagers and children. Quarantine started out

as a break from society but soon turned into solitary confinement for teens and those of all ages.

A New York Times article goes more in depth about the subject and effects. When teens

are surrounded by friends and peers, they are distracted from the issues in their lives. During

quarantine, friends were nowhere in sight, and Covid was present in nearly everything. It was

everywhere you looked, teens felt like they could not escape. Teens depended on their friends

for stability before the pandemic, and after the removal of friends, many crumbled under the

weight of daily stresses. “Since the start of the pandemic, the National Alliance on Mental

Illness has heard from many young adults experiencing anxiety and depression, which the

organization attributes partly to social isolation. The group has cautioned parents and teachers to

look for warning signs, including severe risk-taking behavior, significant weight loss, excessive

use of drugs or alcohol and drastic changes in mood. The proportion of children’s emergency

room visits related to mental health has increased significantly during the pandemic, highlighting

concerns about the psychological effects that lockdowns and social distancing have had on

youth, according to a new analysis released on Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and
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Prevention.” (Goldberg, The New York Times) This article didn’t include many statistical

quotes, mostly testimonials and quotes from interviews with teens suffering during the pandemic.

Is this information different from the norm? When there isn’t a pandemic going on, how

is social media affecting teenagers? An E-Book used to provide insights into internet use and the

youth to adults explains, “There is evidence that the internet can have negative effects for young

people’s mental health and wellbeing in a number of domains. One study identified three specific

areas in which young people aged 10–15 report lower life satisfaction as a result of their use of

internet: the negative impact of making social comparisons with others through the posting of

selective and idealised images; ‘finite resources’, in other words feeling like you are wasting

time on the internet over other activities which may afford more enjoyment;” (Betton and

Woollard, Teen Mental Health in an Online World) According to the same E-Book, in the UK,

the average age a child receives a smartphone is 12 years old! Online addiction was a huge issue

before the pandemic as well. The article points out that the internet has lots of great benefits, but

it would be misleading and totally unethical to not point out the drawbacks and harmful effects

of the internet on teens and children. While this article may include data from the UK, there isn’t

such thing as the “British Internet,” so one could argue the adverse effects in America would be

the same.

How does internet use affect mental health? A study was conducted in 2020 in the UK

where there were 1,431 respondents from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children

(ALSPAC), to identify the effects of internet use. Pulled from the study, the results are quoted,

“Results: Females reporting high levels of internet use (number of hours online) were found to

be at increased risk of depression at follow-up (highest tertile vs lowest tertile OR = 1.41, 95%

CI 0.90 to 2.20), whereas males with high levels of internet use were at increased risk for self-
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harm (highest tertile vs lowest tertile OR = 2.53, 95%CI 0.93 to 6.90). There was no evidence to

suggest an association between hours spent online and anxiety.” (Mars et al.) It’s important to

note that the time spent on the internet does not correlate to anxiety, rather it is the experiences

online that contribute to the factors of mental health.

Bringing the topic back to the relevant today, a Time.com article writes about emotions

and mental health regarding the pandemic. “In a new study by the nonprofit FAIR Health,

investigators combed through a database of 32 billion U.S. health insurance claims—focusing on

the two billion or so from 2019 to 2020—to calculate the numbers filed for health services in the

pediatric age group, which they defined as ages 0 to 22. The researchers focused particularly on

the emotionally turbulent years from 13 to 18, and to a somewhat lesser extent on claims filed by

those ages 19 to 22. In both groups they found sharp spikes from pre-pandemic 2019 to 2020 in a

range of psychological conditions including major depression, generalized anxiety disorder,

adjustment disorder, self-harm, substance abuse, overdoses, OCD, ADHD and tic disorders.”

(Kluger, Time.com) Just as the cases of mental issues themselves increased, so did the coping

mechanisms, which sadly included overdoses and higher illegal drug use. “That kind of pain is

too easy to self-medicate with chemical substances—and kids did just that. In the 13- to 18-year-

old group, claims for drug overdoses increased 95% in March and 119% in April. For substance

abuse that stopped short of overdosing, the numbers were 65% and 63% in those months,

respectively. In the 19-22 group, the peak increase for overdoses was a 65% jump in May;

substance abuse in general topped out at a 27% increase in April. On this score, the FAIR Health

findings are mirrored by those of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which

reported the highest annual number of U.S. overdose deaths ever in the year ending May 2020.”
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(Kluger, Time.com) The effects of the pandemic are very heavy, even taking the lives of many

people not even exposed to the virus.

I myself started conducting interviews with my friends to get some more information

about the effects of the pandemic on mental health. Friend #1: “Before quarantine, I was in a

depressive state because of a girl. During quarantine, I felt actually depressed, afterwards I’m

feeling “normal”, still getting over quarantine, but it’s getting better now.” Friend #2: “I felt

amazing before Covid, I was very happy, I felt good about myself, but after Covid I felt like a

piece of cheese that went through a cheese grater. My mental health was shredded. It felt like...

you just don’t want to live anymore. You just want to sleep and not wake up. Now, it’s okay,

but it’s not the same.” Judging from just these two responses, quarantine obviously had a big

impact on mental health. I too suffered mentally from the pandemic, staring at a screen and

talking to no one was not ideal and felt like torture. I’m doing better now that I can see and talk

to my friends and have that interaction with them. My learning is more engaging that way as

well.

When all the information is compiled together, the sources seem to point to the same

conclusion. The pandemic has caused quite the stir in the mental health of teenagers and those in

quarantine, the negative effects resulting in a slight depression, and reaching all the way to

possible death from suicide or drug overdoses. Anxiety and Depression are running rampant

through the neurons of millions in the world, all desperately seeking an end to these times of

uncertainty.
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Works Cited

Betton, Victoria, and James Woollard. Teen Mental Health in an Online World : Supporting

Young People Around Their Use of Social Media, Apps, Gaming, Texting and the Rest.

Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2019. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?

direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=1811198&site=eds-live.

Goldberg, Emma. “Teens in Covid Isolation: 'I Felt Like I Was Suffocating'.” The New York

Times, The New York Times, 12 Nov. 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/11/12/health/covid-

teenagers-mental-health.html.

Kluger, Jeffrey. “Insurance Claim Data Show How Much Teen Mental Health Has Suffered

During the U.S. COVID-19 Pandemic.” Time.Com, Mar. 2021, p. N.PAG. EBSCOhost,

search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=149069225&site=ehost-live.

Mars, Becky, et al. “Prospective Associations between Internet Use and Poor Mental

Health: A Population-Based Study.” PLoS ONE, vol. 15, no. 7, July 2020, pp. 1–15.

EBSCOhost, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0235889.

Truitt, Ian & Theobald, Joey. Personal Interview. 19 March 2021.