Int. J. Knowledge and Learning, Vol. 15, No.

3, 2022 233

Upshot of coronavirus on the teenagers of Indian

subcontinent and Middle East

Khushboo Agnihotri
Amity Business School,
Amity University,
Uttar Pradesh, Lucknow, UP, India
Email: kagnihotri@lko.amity.ac.edu
Email: agnihotrikhushboo@gmail.com

Sachin Kumar Srivastava*

School of Management,
Graphic Era Hill University,
Dehradun, Uttrakhand, India
Email: sksrivastava@gehu.ac.in
Email: drsachinksrivastava@gmail.com
*Corresponding author

Abstract: This paper talks about the traumatic impact of the COVID-19
pandemic on the human mind. This research will focus on the youth of the
Indian subcontinent and the Middle East. The word ‘youth’ indicates that this
research will be focused solely on the demographic of 13–30 years of age. The
reason for choosing these two specific geographical locations is due to the
circumstance that both of these areas faced the outbreak of the virus around the
same time and imposed strict lockdown rules within the same week. While the
reason for choosing this specific age group is due to the fact that we have the
maximum number of reaches pertaining to this age group. This paper focuses
on the prevalent issues of mental health in the millennial generation and how
uncertainties of the future elevate and enhance such issues. The effects of this
coronavirus will be evaluated with regards to three main factors, i.e., effects of
being in quarantine, impact of social media and influence of economic factors
on the mind.

Keywords: coronavirus; COVID-19; mental health; quarantine; physical

distancing.

Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Agnihotri, K. and

Srivastava, S.K. (2022) ‘Upshot of coronavirus on the teenagers of Indian
subcontinent and Middle East’, Int. J. Knowledge and Learning, Vol. 15, No. 3,
pp.233–252.

Biographical notes: Khushboo Agnihotri is an accomplished professional and

Senior Assistant Professor in the field of Economics and Marketing. She
received her BCom, MCom and PhD in Applied Economics. She started her
career in academics in 2006. In 14 years of her career, she worked as a
Lecturer, Senior Lecturer, Assistant Professor, and Senior Assistant Professor.
Currently, she is working as a Senior Assistant Professor of Economics, Amity
Business School, Amity University Uttar Pradesh Lucknow Campus.

Copyright © 2022 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

234 K. Agnihotri and S.K. Srivastava

Sachin Kumar Srivastava is an accomplished professional and Professor in the

field of Marketing and sales. He received his BE and MTech in Mechanical
Engineering and MBA with major in Marketing and PhD in Public
Administration. He started his career in 2005 with Bharti Tele-venture services
as a sales executive. Later, he moved to academics as a Lecturer. In 17 years of
his career, he worked as a Lecturer, Senior Lecturer, Associate Professor,
Professor and Dean of Management. Currently, he is working as a Professor of
Marketing, School of Management in Graphic Era Hill University Dehradun.

1 Introduction

“Our society is definitely in a collective state of trauma.” (By Jonathon Porteus,

PhD Licensed Clinical Psychologist, CA)
This research, aims to create an analysis that will be helpful for the reader to understand
the psychological stress caused by the COVID-19. The need of the hour is to focus upon
the impact of COVID-19 on mental health since mental health, most of the countries have
been in lockdown for nearly two months. People suffering from depression, suicidal
tendencies and panic attacks as well as anxiousness have been there adverse effects of
this lockdown. The blogger culture of having to make everything productive has
negatively impacted the youth, enhancing their stress (Chwe, 1978).
The idea for this research came through the mental issues faced by our students
during this quarantine. The routine lifestyle snatched in merely a couple of days for an
indefinite period of time is something that bothered most of our pupils. With our constant
virtual interactions with our pupils, we soon came to the realisation that there should be
more discussion on the challenges faced by the youth in such times.
Once we started researching, we came to the conclusion that only a handful of the
researches published have focused on the mental health of the people during coronavirus.
We will be using these few pieces of research to analyse the data we have collected
(Srivastava and Agnihotri, 2020).

1.1 Defining mental health and COVID-19

“The COVID-19 epidemic has caused a parallel epidemic of fear, anxiety, and
depression. People with mental health conditions could be more substantially
influenced by the emotional responses brought on by the COVID-19 epidemic,
resulting in relapses or worsening of an already existing mental health
condition because of high susceptibility to stress compared with the general
population.” (The Lancet report)
“Patients with mental health disorders in the COVID-19 epidemic.”

1.2 Mental health

The concept of ‘mental health’ officially came into existence in London in 1946, post
establishment of the World Health Organization (WHO). Prior to that, there are
references to this concept by the name of ‘mental hygiene’, first accounted in 1843, in a
book titled Mental Hygiene. Mental health includes not only our psychological wellbeing
but our emotional, social wellbeing as well. It actively affects our thought process, our
 Upshot of coronavirus on the teenagers of Indian subcontinent 235

decision-making process, on how we conduct our day to day activities, as well as affects
our relationship with our society. Mental health or mental illness is a large topic which
cannot be defined due to its complex nature, but to put it simply, mental health is an
individual’s condition with regard to the psychological and emotional well-being (Aqeel
et al., 2021).
Mental Illness is the condition wherein the mental or psychological health of an
individual has deteriorated and becomes a hindrance in doing the normal things in life.
People who suffer from depression tend to feel mentally exhausted to the point that, for
some, getting out of bed seems like an overbearing task. Similarly, people who suffer
from severe mental illness such as obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) or attention
deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), have other issues that make everyday tasks
dreadful. For example, youth with depression tend to be quiet and try to create distance
between themselves and their family and friends to deal with their emotions alone and not
hurt the ones they care about (Ettman et al., 2020). This common behaviour if not
diagnosed on time can lead to further deterioration of mental health and any added stress
may lead to suicidal tendencies or self-harm. Thus, what may start with simple anxiety or
stress can turn into a life-threatening disease if left untreated. Hence, open discussion and
actively promoting seeking help from medical professionals and therapists are very much
important since mental health can affect us as much or even more than how physical
ailments affect us. The stigma and taboo against mental health is the biggest cause of
untreated cases of mental illness.
For the purpose of this research, we will be focusing on the mental health of the
Indian youth and the GCC youth. When we focus on the youth in India and their
psychological issues, statistics suggest that up to 30% of the youth face some sort of
mental issues, this means that from the approximate 600 million young people in India,
around 180 million citizens suffer from mental illnesses.
Reasons for this vary as we move from the poor sections of society towards the rich,
as well as educated and uneducated. Some of the causes are both malnutrition and
over-nutrition, drug abuse, high-risk sexual behaviours, injuries and accidents, stress etc.
The fact that most teenagers turn towards tobacco use in conditions of stress, is an
example of when the multiple conditions coexist in an individual which leads to higher
risks of low mental health (Srivastava et al., 2017).
Similarly, when we focus on the young people residing in the GCC or the Middle
East we can find out that the main causes of poor mental health in the youth are their
personal relationships, not only romantically but with their peers, teachers, family, etc.
The estimated number of young people is around 200 million, in the 15 countries that
constitute the Middle East. The YouGov poll conducted with 1,085 participants of this
area suggests that 72% would pursue help from professionals (Srivastava et al., 2016).
These high numbers in both areas are mainly due to the stigma and taboo that has
been deeply established in these societies around mental health. People seldom want to
accept that something is wrong with them, the people who do accept and realise tend to
deal with it alone rather than talking to family and friends due to fearing being ridiculed,
joked or gossiped about. The data from the Arab Youth Survey 2019 concluded that half
of the respondents of the survey stated that there was a stigma attached to seeking
medical care in the context of mental health. However, about 62% of the youth in the
GCC countries accept mental illness as a normal thing (Barzilay et al., 2020).
236 K. Agnihotri and S.K. Srivastava

“The Arab population is plagued by issues that are no different from any other
population in the world: depression, anxiety, eating disorders, addiction,
suicide, self-mutilation, post-traumatic disorders, mood disorders and so on.”
(Fadwa Lkorchy, a psychologist at the Dubai-based German Neuroscience
Center, The Hidden Face of Mental Illness in the Middle East, 27 April 2020
[online] https://www.arabnews.com/node/1496661/middle-east)
The common reasons for mental issues that are highlighted through these surveys in the
young people of both the Indian Subcontinent and the Middle East are:
• Interpersonal problems.
• Poor relationship with parents.
• High-stress levels – due to high pressures of scoring above average marks in school.
• Negative body image – due to society’s pressure of thin/fair beauty in women and
need for taller height and 6-pack abs in men.
• Post-traumatic stress disorder.
• Exposure to worldwide perspectives leads to higher expectations for standards of
living, education, career, etc. This, in turn, leads to frustration and complex on one’s
own life.
Some other issues that lead to poor mental health in youth in these areas are domestic
violence, drug abuse in the family, violence, verbal abuse, bullying, cyber bullying,
stalking, etc.

1.3 Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19)

The word ‘virus’ comes from a Latin word ‘Poison’ which meant deadly poisonous
liquid. Hence, a virus is essentially a non-living organism that is able to multiply only
within the living cells of a host. The official name of the virus is SARS-COV-2 and the
name of the disease it causes is COVID-19. The word ‘corona’ comes from the word
crown which refers to the crown-like spikes found on the outside layer of the virus. This
disease is airborne, which means it spreads through the air via coughing, sneezing and
even talking. It is transmitted from person to person via the ears, nose and mouth.
However, this disease can survive on surfaces and a person can self-infect themselves
with the disease by touching their ears, nose, mouth or eyes. A normal human being
touches himself at these spots on an average of 20 times an hour, meaning we are 20
times more likely to infect ourselves in an hour if into contact with the virus.
Symptoms for this virus can be categorised into two categories:
1 common symptoms: fever, coughing and fatigue
2 possible symptoms: shortness of breath, sore throat, loss of appetite, diarrhoea and
loss of smell or taste.
The underlying issue is that all these symptoms are likely to be mistaken for symptoms of
common flu.
There are seven known types of coronavirus, four of which are not deadly but
contribute to 1/3 of all common colds and are ‘successful viruses’. The other three are the
above-mentioned COVID-19 as well as SARS of 2002 and MERS of 2012. SERS and
 Upshot of coronavirus on the teenagers of Indian subcontinent 237

MERS were both deadly forms of coronaviruses but did not spread as fast as COVID-19
and were hence contained. The carriers of such viruses originally start from bats since
viruses do not affect bats but when they are transferred from bats to humans, they become
much stronger and take the shape of new viruses. The virus that transfers from wildlife to
human transmission is known as ‘zoonotic viruses’. Approximately 1.5 million such
viruses exist in the wildlife that we do not even know about. In the case of COVID-19,
this virus was discovered a few years ago by a company called ‘Eco Health’.
Eco Health is an organisation created post-SARS. It has a group of scientists that test
bats in the caves in the south of China for potential viruses, and label the viruses found as
either low-risk or high-risk. If a high-risk virus is found, the government of China gets an
alert and they seclude off that area to prevent spread. As stated above, this virus was
found a couple of years ago and labelled as low- risk. This virus was then given the name
bat coronavirus RaTG13, which upon inspection of the current COVID-19 is 96%
identical. When it was first discovered, it did not resemble SARS virus and was labelled
low risk due to the spread seemingly distant and not so dangerous, however, it is
theorised that over the course of time it evolved into a far greater risk.
Nevertheless, a pandemic has been long overdue, and researchers were very well
aware of the nature of the pandemic as well. Yet, the question arises, why were not we
more prepared? In April of 2019, Bill Gates had said in an interview that “well if you
think anything that could come along that would kill millions, the pandemic is our
greatest risk”. He stated that most of the government funding is to the military in
preparation of wars, but the greatest war on the population is a respiratory disease
pandemic. He further went as far as to say that a disease like SARS could very well be
contained but a disease that affects the respiratory pathogens can lead to a pandemic. The
WHO released a report in September of 2019, three months before the first reported case
of the coronavirus, which stated that “there is a very real threat of a rapidly moving,
lethal pandemic of the respiratory pathogen” and that “the world is not prepared” for such
events. The warnings by such bodies were open for the public but the governments of
various nations downplayed the virus, which was the main cause of the pandemic, the
virus got a head start.
In China, at the beginning of a pandemic, a doctor had tried to urge the government to
go into lockdown, three weeks prior to official lockdown. That doctor was told to stop
propagating fear and made to sign agreements to silence him by the Chinese Government.
The doctor passed away one week into the official lockdown but scientists conducted
research and found out that if China had sealed off and gone into lockdown three weeks
prior, it could have contained and prevented 95% of the cases which arose in China. It
was also found out that 41% of infected cases in China at the beginning of the pandemic
were due to hospital to human, to human contact.
“We should have been more prepared, but with our technology, science and
coordination, we’ve never been more prepared.” (Corona Virus, Explained,
Netflix)
In the beginning, we should have acted faster. But we cannot change the past, what we
can change is the future. Therefore, we must act towards flattening the curve. A disease
like this spread exponentially, meaning that it doubles every couple of days. These kinds
of diseases are known as significant diseases since the virus in these are slow and silent
like that in HIV and/or move very fast. Their basic symptoms are often confused with
other diseases.
238 K. Agnihotri and S.K. Srivastava

A sample of 1,494 patients; 19 years and above in the USA found out that 3/4 of the
coronavirus patients had some sort of an underlying disease, such as lung disease, heart
disease or diabetes. This ensures that there is a certain section of the society which is
more prone and considered at high-risk. Along with that, studies in China, Italy and
South Korea suggest that men are more likely to get infected by this disease (China –
64% men, Italy – 69% men and South Korea – 53% men of the total COVID-19 cases).
Though the official reasoning for that is not confirmed but it may be due to higher
chances of smoking tobacco or alternatively that men do not wash their hands as often as
women do.
Ideally, in such a contagious disease the best way to defend ourselves would be
through our immunity. Our immune system fights off in the recovered cases and that
lessens the chances of spread since there is better immunity and the virus becomes weak,
this is known as ‘herd immunity’. However, we cannot completely rely on herd immunity
since doing so will lead to millions of deaths. Thus, the need of the hour is vaccines,
which act as a shortcut towards herd immunity. But until we have a vaccine, we must
adopt the technique that was invented in the Black Plague of 1918, ‘quarantine’ or ‘social
distancing’. These terms advocate creating distance between human contact. Lowering
going outside and keeping the people at high-risk as away from social gathering as much
as possible. Due to our current technology, it is still quite manageable to continue with
our day to day operations and working without leaving the comfort of our home.
In the end, the reason for such pandemics is humanity in itself. Till we find a way to
decrease animal to animal contact (such as in animal factories) and close open livestock
markets the chances of such infections arising is very high. Since such close proximities
lead to mutations in the virus creating stronger viruses which ultimately lead to zoonotic
viruses endangering the majority of human race.

2 Mental health of youth and COVID-19

From the above brief descriptions of mental health and COVID-19, we can find that the
noticeable effects of this pandemic will be circulating around stress, anxiety, and
depression. Along with that, youth that faces any kind of abuse at their homes are living
in a nightmare. It is therefore very necessary to take action to tackle these issues. Some
professionals have started providing online therapy sessions to their clients. But it is also
very important for the government to take proactive measures in promoting self-help
hotlines and providing better facilities and importance for mental health.

2.1 Comparison of the impact of COVID-19 between Middle East and Indian
subcontinent
Figures 1–2 show the predicted increase in the number of coronavirus cases in India and
the Middle East. This data shows that in the near future there will be continuous growth
in the number of infected patients. This suggests that the lockdown rules and regulations
are more likely to get stricter in the upcoming months. These countries are largely
populated that live in close proximities henceforth it is harder to control the spread
without strict measures. This situation of being in closed doors to an indefinite period in
one’s own house, impacts one’s mental health negatively. However, the Lockdown has
 Upshot of coronavirus on the teenagers of Indian subcontinent 239

been far stricter in the Middle East as compared to the Indian Subcontinent which is why
there are chances that the Middle Eastern countries manage the pandemic better.

Figure 1 Predicted cases of COVID-19 in India (see online version for colours)

Figure 2 Predicted growth of COVID-19 in Middle East (see online version for colours)

These points highlight the uncertain times that we live in, this uncertainty leads to more
stress for the youth since they do not get a definite answer for if or when their exams will
be conducted? When will they apply for universities? Will they have graduation?, etc.
Along with the fact that the abrupt lockdown in these countries, have led to immobility of
the students studying abroad and many of them face anxiousness and stress whether they
will be going back home or not this year. One such example we found among our sample
population was of a girl who lives alone in her home in India since her relatives have
found her a ‘burden’ and forced her to live all alone. Living all alone with problematic
240 K. Agnihotri and S.K. Srivastava

families in such times has definitely made her feel very depressed and anxious about
when she will be allowed to visit her parents. Another girl who partook in our survey is
studying dentistry was quarantined in her hostel due to the chances of her being a carrier
of the disease and now cannot fly back home due to the seemingly limitless lockdown.
Therefore, this suggests that mental illness is the outcome of this pandemic and to get
proper treatment is the need of the hour.
However, every cloud has a silver lining. We conducted an informal survey by asking
a sample of the total population ‘what was something that they had learned during this
quarantine?’. Some had replied that they enjoyed having some time with themselves and
enjoyed indulging in long-forgotten hobbies, some found peace in cleaning and
decluttering their surroundings, others found time to introspect and meditate while mostly
found being grateful of their privileges, their loved ones and the ones that cared enough
to keep in contact with each other and check-up on each other through virtual meets on
social media.

3 Research methodology

In order to understand better the current mental issues, we conducted a survey of a

population of a sample size of 500, out of which 320 people responded who were
between the age of 13–30, which is the average age group that is considered as the
‘youth’ in both India and the Middle East, which is our main geographical location focus.
Out of the 320 filled questionnaires received, 205 were Indian while 115 were from the
Middle East.
• questionnaire was sent to: 500
• filled in questionnaire received: 320
• out of which, Indian: 205; Middle East youth: 115
• time period under study: December 2019 to May 2020.
The null hypothesis for this research is that the surveyors are going to face a downfall of
their mental health, along with considerable increase or fluctuations in anxiousness and
depression. The alternate hypothesis will be such that there is no decrease in mental
health and no increase in anxiousness or depression.
We intend to use the correlation method of research. Correlation will be calculated
using MS Excel, using the ‘CORREL’ formula along with bar graphs and pie charts
created by the help of MS Excel and MS Word. The correlation will be done to discuss
the impacts of three factors on the top three mental issues faced by the youngsters. To
explain them properly, we will divide them into a 3×3 matrix, explained and analysed as
nine topics, as shown in Table 1.
Table 1 3×3 matrix: Top three mental issues faced by the youngsters

Quarantine Social media Economic factors

General mental health 1 4 7
Anxiety and stress levels 2 5 8
Depression 3 6 9
 Upshot of coronavirus on the teenagers of Indian subcontinent 241

Before we had begun analysing the data collected in detail, we classified the population
of who we took the survey into the ones who have mental illness and the ones who do
not. However, the ones who picked yes, no or maybe, all three had the choice to focus
specifically on their general mental health. Figure 3 shows the percentage of the
population who picked yes/no/maybe).

Figure 3 Percentage of the population (see online version for colours)

Once that was done, we asked them about their illness, focusing more on anxiety and
depression which is a broader group in which people identify themselves in this
demographic. As seen below out of the 320 people who took the survey, 285 people
opted for yes or maybe (which as seen above is 75.3% and 16.1% respectively).
Out of those 320, 60.4% opted for general mental health issues and 32.1% for anxiety
and 7.5% opted for depression (Figure 4).

Figure 4 Illness statuss (see online version for colours)

Then we created a separate section for the people dealing with anxiety. Out of the
responses that we got for anxiety, 88.2% have not been diagnosed while the rest have
diagnosed forms of anxiousness.
Similarly, we asked respondents of depression choice, if their depression was
diagnosed, and none of them were diagnosed. This is a clear indicator that people
suffering from mental health issues do not talk about their issues and do not ask for help
from professionals especially in the demographic that we worked with. It is safe to say
242 K. Agnihotri and S.K. Srivastava

that most people do not accept that they have depression and if they do, they do not
contact professionals due to fearing how their parents or family might react to it.

4 The impact of being in quarantine

4.1 General mental health

The people who chose general mental health, for them we created a separate section
where we asked them more specific questions. We analyse that out of the 194 sample size
for general mental health, 58.3% agreed that their mental health has deteriorated in such
difficult times.
However, when we asked them to rate their deterioration on a scale of 1 to 5, 1 being
the least and 5 being the most, nearly half, i.e., 40% have opted for 1 which is least
deterioration (As of May 2020). This indicates that in two months, most people have still
been stable mentally. However, these numbers will change overtime as the pandemic
prolongs. Clearly there are many factors to this, especially that this is a break from the
everyday hectic routine and that our bodies are channelled to enjoy 2 months’ vacation
since schools and colleges usually stop during this timeline.
When asked about whether they think their mental health will further deteriorate, the
outcome is hopeful since 41.7% disagree and believe their mental health will remain as it
is. This data will vary if the lockdown and quarantine extend over the next couple of
months (this is based on a survey conducted in May 2020).

4.2 Anxiety and stress levels

As we have done above, we asked people facing anxiousness due to stress, uncertainty,
lifestyle etc. if their anxiety has increased. In this case, there was a clear divide in the
votes. This is because of the fact that different people have different comfort zones and
personalities, which majorly differ between introverts and extroverts, with the former
being quite comfortable being with their family and are happy about the lack of
socialising and the latter being more anxious about whether or not they will be able to go
out or will they be able to go home, etc.
As done previously with general mental health, we asked the people who responded
with yes on the previous question, on what levels did their anxiousness increase? 50%
voted for level 3, which is the middle level. With this, we can understand that even
though we are locked down in our homes, the various activities of schools, colleges and
work is definitely acting as a force to increase stress and anxiousness. However,
busyness from schools, universities, work etc. do help us take our minds off from the fact
that we are stuck indoors indefinitely.
Lastly, as anxious people usually are, they are confused about whether or not their
anxiousness will increase over time. The reason for this could be that anxiousness is not
constant, neither is stress. It changes as the circumstances change (this is the report based
as of May 2020). Depending on the individual this can both increase and decrease as time
goes by.
 Upshot of coronavirus on the teenagers of Indian subcontinent 243

4.3 Depression
As understood by the literature review, we know that most people are unwilling to accept
that they suffer from depression. Hence, it makes sense why out of the 320 people
surveyed there were only 9.5% who accepted they have depression albeit undiagnosed.
The 9.5% of people were sent another form to state the reason for their depression and
the results seemed to revolve around family-related issues topped with the stress of
education or work that had made them suffer from depression and such circumstances
had them relapse. There were varying responses to the level of increase in depression
with nearly 20% vote on each level from 1 to 5 which suggests that level of increase in
depression ranges for everyone differently depending on external and internal factors
(May 2020).
Once we had established the impact of quarantine on various mental illnesses, we
further asked people where they have been staying. This was to find if there was a
correlation between the place of stay and the deteriorated mental health. Upon further
examination, we found out that the 2% of population that are staying at the hostel, have
faced an increase in their anxiety and are on an average at level 3 on the 1-5 scale. While
people who are living in their apartments or at home have faced no or the least increase in
their mental health.
We asked the surveyors how many people were in quarantine with the intent to
understand if being alone has impacted people negatively. However about 1% of the
population are alone and live in their own apartments. Since they are at home lockdown
has not impacted their mental health much. Similarly, as people are surrounded by friends
and family, most of them have had a stable mental condition, apart from the ones who
have weak or poor relationships with their family.
We then asked people if they had hit an ‘all time low’ during this time period (March
to May 2020). The term ‘all-time low’ refers to the point of a mental breakdown where
an individual loses hope and they believe that the situation they are in cannot get better.
They believe they will stay in this difficult position forever. Quarantine and the constant
talk on coronavirus definitely have been difficult to process for people with high levels of
anxiety. 17.5% of the people who partook in this survey believed that this is the worst
possible situation they have been in and that there is no hope. 52.5% are confused if this
has been the worst of times faced by them. While 30% are seemingly unfaced by this
situation.
As we know, crying is a clear indicator that a person has been under some stress or
mental issues. Crying is a way to relieve any pain felt by an individual. Hence it was very
important for me to ask the respondents if they had cried. 40% of the population said yes.
This means that they might have underlying conditions of anxiousness, stress, tension,
panic, insomnia etc. that they might not know about.
It has been two months of lockdown; hence it is important to understand when people
cried the most. From the data we gathered that there is a three-way tie between the past
two weeks, a week ago and today (as of second week of May 2020). Analysing this
timeline with the news of my geographical locations, it is understandable that in the past
two weeks newer and stricter rules have been imposed on lockdown and the hopelessness
and the frustration caused by such rules is one of the reasons people have cried. The
people who cried ‘today’ all seemed to be facing personal issues which added as the
cherry on top of the dreaded lock-down sundae. It is crucial to talk about mood swings in
244 K. Agnihotri and S.K. Srivastava

relation to mental health. Figure 5 indicates that the 68% of the people who took the
survey believed they have experienced some version of mood swings.

Figure 5 Percentage of mood swings (see online version for colours)

Finally, we asked the surveyors to rate their frustration with the lockdown on a scale of
1–5, shockingly, maximum people have rated themselves at 3 or 5, which is alarming
since within two months people have felt like they have peaked frustration even though
there is still a long lockdown to go (Figure 6).

Figure 6 Frustration due to lockdown (see online version for colours)

5 Influence of social factors on the youth

In this section, we will analyse the social factors that act as a major reason for the
stability or instability of a person’s mental health. The word ‘social’ is derived from the
Latin word socii (‘allies’). It is particularly derived from the Italian Socii states. Social
organisms, including humans, live collectively in interacting populations. This interaction
is considered social whether they are aware of it or not, and whether the interaction is
voluntary or involuntary.
Naturally, the first question we asked in this section of the survey was: Has social
media such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat etc. impacted the surveyors. As shown
clearly in Figure 7 social media has impacted 59% of the surveyors. This question was a
general question and did not pertain to any single group.
 Upshot of coronavirus on the teenagers of Indian subcontinent 245

Figure 7 Social media impact (see online version for colours)

5.1 General mental health

The term ‘blogger culture’ accurately describes this generation. The toxic thought process
that most of the young adults have that base their success on the number of views, likes,
followers etc. is the reason why social media platforms are far more dangerous than they
seem. Especially in the pandemic, social media can act as a huge reason for the
deterioration of one’s mental health. Based on the data collected, it has pressurised 49.5%
of the surveyors to be more productive.

Figure 8 Mental health (see online version for colours)

Another thing that is important to understand is how much has this pandemic changed the
mentality of the surveyors with regard to going out, we can see from Figure 8 that there is
a mix of opinions on if they will be comfortable going out. There is a tie between the
number of voters who say they will be comfortable going outside and the ones that are
confused about how they will feel about being in public places. However, there still are
some, 18.3% who believe they will not be comfortable at all going outside (Figure 8).
A valid question that arises is: how long do the surveyors believe this pandemic will
last. As we have established by our literature review it can take up to two years for this
pandemic to end. However, our surveyors are hopeful and believe it will take a few
months to a year for this to end. This brings us to our next question, how long will the
majority of the people wait till going out, 31% said that they will at least wait a few days
246 K. Agnihotri and S.K. Srivastava

before going out. On an average people will wait somewhere between a few days to a
couple of weeks before they go out.

5.2 Anxiety and depression

The results of our two correlations between social factors and anxiety as well as social
factors and depression were very similar, hence the analysis of the results was clubbed
together in order to have a deeper understanding of mental illnesses and social factors.
This analysis also proves that anxiousness is the first step towards depression as said by
Professor John Doe of University of Toronto (Mind Control: Managing Your Mental
Health during COVID-19; Coursera)
Now another change this pandemic will bring is in the pattern people chose to go out.
Due to lockdown hours, most people are shopping early mornings which was not a norm
before, which is why I asked them what time will they prefer going out, post lockdown.
As before the pandemic most people preferred to go in the night. From the data gathered
we can say that the majority of the surveyors prefer going early in the morning or in the
evening. However, with the constant reminder to be 6 feet apart and maintain social
distancing, naturally, this instils anxiety in the population. Likewise, when asked if they
will feel anxious going into crowded places the majority of the surveyors voted for either
yes or maybe meaning that they will definitely face anxiousness while being in crowded
places.
However, there are always two sides of a coin and social media influencers have
always propagated the use of partaking in self-care activities. Hence, we found it
necessary to analyse if there is an impact of such influencers on the youth. The age group
we chose were from 13–30, in this demographic, there is a major subsection of
16–24 year olds, who actively participates in becoming fans of ‘MUA’ also known as
makeup artists or lifestyle gurus and pursue self-care; that subsection is highlighted in the
first three options given in Figure 9, the younger group is highlighted in the last option
and the older youth fall into all the last three options.

Figure 9 Anxiety and depression (see online version for colours)

When we talk about people facing anxiousness or depression, one of the negative impacts
of social media is that it majorly influences sleep patterns. Insomnia is an illness that
occurs when people are super stressed and insomnia cases in this millennial generation
are extremely high due to the fact that new content is always uploaded on social media
 Upshot of coronavirus on the teenagers of Indian subcontinent 247

and that it is a great way to keep yourself busy and lose sleep. Upon analysis it is clear
that the surveyors are mostly sleeping a healthy amount however the time schedule/
timing of when they sleep is unhealthy. Anxiousness usually hits people the most during
night which can instigate insomnia and allow sleepless nights and sleepy days. Hence,
67% of the surveyors are sleeping morning to evening due to being at home 24/7, a clear
indicator of anxiousness, depression and multiple other mental disorders therefore these
statistics are quite alarming especially in such an age demographic.
Another indicator of poor mental health is the number of meals people have in a day
since social media is filled with fit people that post about their ‘healthy’ diet which
actually is not healthy at all. From the information gathered, there are an equal number of
voters who have two meals a day and three meals a day. People are usually having two
meals a day because of unhealthy sleeping patterns, and which messes up the proper
timing of food intake. The people who are taking in three meals a day are eating the
healthy number of meals and are probably reaching proper nutrition, the people who have
more than three meals may be suffering from depression or stress which also makes
people consume more than the usual. Lastly as believed by many pieces of research,
when asked whether there will be a global shift in social norms. Even our group of
surveyors agree that there will be a global shift in social norms once this pandemic will
get over.
We also asked all our surveyors to tell us what they have been doing to feel better and
pass time in this quarantine. 44% of the surveyors said they are working out, 35% picked
up and/or got back into the habit of reading, while 31% are trying their hand at cooking
or baking. Apart from that a lot of people have been gaming, doing yoga, meditation,
doing various arts and crafts as stress busters and many more things. This is a hopeful
response since being busy is a blessing. The fact that youth are involving themselves in
activities along with having considerably healthy lifestyles in this situation means that
they are adapting to this sudden change and are trying their best to maintain safe and
healthy mental health.

6 Impact of economic factors

Economic factors are the things that are out of the control of a single individual. This
means that it includes all the socio-political factors that are not directed towards a single
individual but towards the society and an individual has little to no control over this. It is
a very important factor while discussing mental health because these are the factors that
make an individual hopeless and can lead to extreme levels of sadness, hopelessness,
frustration, stress, anxiousness, depression, suicidal tendencies, etc.

6.1 General mental health

To begin with the economic impact, we first need to establish how much is the youth of
today aware of the current happenings around the globe. With the results gathered we
find out that the youth is decently aware about the happenings around the globe. The
main reason of this is the time spent on countless social media where they get filtered,
unfiltered, true and false information all the time.
248 K. Agnihotri and S.K. Srivastava

However, everyone has a different mental capacity to process things and have a
different reaction to things. With that said, nearly half of the populations do not let the
happenings affect them while the rest do get affected or have only some news that affects
them. Triggers are something that vary with each individual, the current scenarios have
definitely made the youth more easily triggered, as time goes on, situations might differ
and reactions and effect of news can increase or decrease (May 2020).
Stress is usually caused by schools, universities or offices. Basically, places that
require you to be in a certain or formal manner are places that cause stress. A person’s
home is their safe area. But due to the pandemic, most of the people have started
attending or working from home. This change obviously led to an overall increase in
stress with some offices not respecting working hours and trying to make employees
work with seemingly no ending hours.
In the graph, we can see that institutions and corporations have affected the general
mental health on level 4 of a scale of 1 to 5, which is quite high within two months of
lockdown (Figure 8).

Figure 8 General mental health (see online version for colours)

6.2 Anxiety and depression

As done before we have again clubbed together responses from anxiety and depression
for better analysis. There are always two sides of a coin and on one side some companies
have managed to work as well or even better while implementing work from home. On
the other side, the companies have not worked so well and have had mismanaged
experiences. This led us to ask the question, should these companies’ function as work
from home post pandemic. The majority believes that they should function from home as
well. This answer indicates that people are anxious and/ or feel uncomfortable working in
close proximities even after COVID-19. This is majorly due to falling in this intense
comfort zone at home with a limited number of social interactions that any new
interaction sounds hectic along with unsafe. Similarly, we asked the surveyors who were
students how comfortable they were with virtual learning and the majority is very
comfortable with online classes. However, due to the added screen time and stress that
virtual classes provide as well as not having classmates and a whole classroom
atmosphere, most students voted for normal classes post pandemic.
When the working class was asked how comfortable they were with work from home
results vary and are mixed with most of the surveyors voting for level 2 which is quite
low on the comfort scale (Figure 11).
 Upshot of coronavirus on the teenagers of Indian subcontinent 249

Figure 11 Work from home status (see online version for colours)

Similarly, we asked how comfortable they are in their office spaces and here the results
are positive with more or less everyone being the above-average level of comfort
(Figure 12).

Figure 12 Work from office (see online version for colours)

We can observe from Figures 11 and 12 that on comparison, they are quite similar on the
scale of comfortableness, which implies that when we asked which of the two situations
would be more comfortable, there was a near equal response. This is because the working
people get more family time that they cannot get working from an office and being with
one’s family acts as a comfort point and helps lower stress. Even when works and classes
are stressful.
Lastly, it is important that with the situation around the globe and how some
governments failed to contain the spread, and still keep downplaying the pandemic, it
becomes important now on who the population trusts when it comes to the end of the
pandemic and when it becomes safe to go back outside and engage in social activities. As
expected, most of the surveyors will be most comfortable going outside when it is
declared safe by medical professionals.

6.3 Correlation results

The report of a correlation includes:
r - the strength of the relationship
p value - the significance level.
n - the sample size
250 K. Agnihotri and S.K. Srivastava

‘Significance’ tells you the probability that the line is due to chance. More specifically,
the ‘significance’ represents a test of whether the line is different from a flat line.
Table 2 Corelation results

Matrix
Factors
number
1 Quarantine and general mental health
2 Quarantine, anxiety and stress levels
3 Quarantine and depression
4 Social media and general mental health
5 Social media, and anxiety and stress levels
6 Social media and depression
7 Economic factor and general mental
health
8 Economic factor, and anxiety and stress
levels
9 Economic factor and depression
Correlation results
There was a positive correlation between
the two variables, r = .35, p = < .001.
There was a positive correlation between
the two variables, r = .47, p = < .003.
There was a positive correlation between
the two variables, r = .15, p = < .001.
There was a positive correlation between
the two variables, r = .64, p = < .005.
There was a positive correlation between
the two variables, r = .80, p = < .025.
There was a positive correlation between
the two variables, r = .96, p = < .035.
There was a positive correlation between
the two variables, r = .55, p = < .001.
There was a positive correlation between
the two variables, r = .79, p = < .008.
There was a positive correlation between
the two variables, r = .69, p = < .005.

7 Conclusions

COVID-19 and mental illness is a vast topic and has various factors that affect this
situation. In our research, we talked about three of the biggest factors that affect the youth
of today as well as the three most common conditions in which people group themselves.
Most of the surveyors faced some or the other mental issue during the last two months of
lockdown. The seemingly unexpected spread of the virus along with the complete
stillness has increased frustration in individuals. Many have complained how being stuck
at home or with the family has made them lose personal space however, they are thankful
for their family as being around people does help them distract themselves from being
alone with their thoughts in such tough times.
Some have adopted various habits like cooking, reading, crafts, gaming, etc. We
asked our surveyors what or if they have had a realisation that changed their meaning of
life, and a lot of people realised that they spend their life running for the worldly thing
like money, when in reality, when tough times hit, its only health that matters the most.
These challenging times have made people realise that there are so many everyday
blessings to be thankful for, to be more spiritual and religious, and has helped them find
out who are the ones who truly care about their health and who are the ones who were
friends because of their own materialistic reasons.
Another sad reality is that there is a wide circulation of fake news and fake anecdotes
being spread about for COVID-19 which can be really overbearing and can make
 Upshot of coronavirus on the teenagers of Indian subcontinent 251

COVID-19 seem more or less dangerous than how it actually is. News, political changes,
looming dread of war between countries, a war within countries on necessities etc. is
definitely something that has impacted mental health drastically.
Many people believe that post-pandemic we should maintain and take precautionary
methods, wash our hands as we do right now, take care of ourselves and be much more
aware of our surroundings. COVID-19 has definitely taught us to be far more careful and
protective of our body. Some believed that this situation has taught resilience and made a
lot of people understand and introspect about all of the things they should not worry
about since it is not something they can control.
In conclusion, our hypothesis stands correct and it is rightly said that this pandemic
has created a parallel pandemic of poor mental health and sad realities. The young adults
are very much trying to cope up with the situation and trying their best to stay positive in
this situation. A lot of them are far from home and finding positives does get hard. They
are also disturbed due to the recession of the markets and are wondering if they will be
able to get a job or not once this pandemic is over. They are trying to make the best of the
situation but it would be wrong to say just that, since everyone in all age brackets have
had their mental health deteriorated to some extent and that if governments do not take
timely actions we might just be faced with a mentally unstable working class, and may
lose some people to mental health disorders and casualties.

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