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Read the following text carefully. Write a critical analysis of the text in about
600 words.

Is the pandemic making our social skills decay?

Psychologists think so
Psychologists say we may be losing the ability to be able to easily connect to one another
By NICOLE KARLIS
PUBLISHED FEBRUARY 4, 2021 7:01PM (EST)

After living in lockdown for nearly a year, it is hard for the human mind to fully
grasp how the coronavirus pandemic has affected our health. Though we're still
in the thick of it, there are hints. Doctors warn that more screen time is
causing vision problems. Longer work days and fewer places to go mean more
complaints of back and neck pains. But most of all, our lack of socializing is taking
its toll on our social skills.

Indeed, psychologists say that the lack of everyday social contact could result in
many once-extroverted people coming out the other end of the pandemic
feeling socially awkward and anxious.

"It will not feel normal," said Craig Haney, a professor of psychology at the
University of California, Santa Cruz, whose research has focused on the
psychological limitations of imprisonment. "We have all been forced to
accommodate the absence of other people in our lives."

Haney emphasized that one's social experience is "relative": some of us live with
family, others live alone; many elderly people have been fully isolated for nearly
a year; essential workers are still working and thus socializing more frequently
(perhaps with masks). Still, the pandemic has led to a loss of everyday social
contact in some shape or form for just about everyone. That's subjected all of
us to what he describes as "a mild form of solitary confinement."

"I'm not for a minute suggesting that we've experienced the harsh, painful and
often destructive experience of solitary confinement that prisoners have, but
we've experienced a mild form of it," Haney explained. "And a key aspect of that
is that we've experienced social deprivation."

According to the American Psychological Association, social deprivation is

defined as "limited access to society's resources," and a "lack of adequate
opportunity for social experience," which sounds like an accurate description of
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most of our pandemic social lives. Haney said when experiencing social
deprivation, it becomes harder for us to relate to one another — which is why
many people may feel like it's become harder to socialize right now. Hence, the
anecdotal rise in awkwardness and anxiety.

Social psychologist Julie Blackman said "awkward" might not be the right way to
describe what's happening, and suggested that social interactions are "harder
to construct."

"If you haven't been doing much, all of the things that we relied on for making
good casual conversation, we don't have available to us," Blackman said. "I'm
noticing that in my own conversations with friends that were sort of petering
out a little because we're not going anywhere or doing anything."

Blackman said that once mass vaccination occurs and we can safely enjoy each
other's company in person again, we are going to have to work harder to
overcome the uneasiness of socializing.

"I actually think as people get back out into the world more that that piece of it
will come back pretty quickly," Blackman said. "I think what's going to be harder
over the long term is figuring out how to integrate this past year into our future."

Blackman reflected on how her grandparents were alive during the Spanish flu;
her grandmother graduated from college in 1920.

"I never heard them say one word about it, and my grandparents lived until I
was an adult," she said. "I wonder, what will we say, what will we tell our
children?"

Indeed, the effect of this (or any) pandemic on our physical and mental health is
more complex than just feeling like you don't know how to socialize anymore
and having to refine your social skills. Haney said he believes what's happening
is a "profound assault on the human psyche."

"To be deprived of contact with other people, to be deprived of natural, normal,

social interaction — all of these things that connect us to one another have all
become problematic and prohibited," Haney said. "And this is producing
depression, it's producing anxiety, it's producing a destabilization of their sense
of self."
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Previous research has shown how social isolation can also affect a person's sleep
quality, accelerate cognitive decline, and cause an imbalance between oxidants
and antioxidants which can impair a person's large arteries. In other words, the
changes that are happening to us are both psychological and biological.

According to a study by German scientists published in 2019, the effect of social

isolation and monotony can be also observed in the makeup of our brains. In the
study, before and after MRI scans of nine polar explorers showed that their
brains got smaller over the course of 14 months when they lived at a research
station in Antarctica. Specifically, the "dentate gyrus" — the part of the brain
that's responsible for forming memories, and critical in learning — decreased by
7 percent.

This makes sense considering that our memories often rely on where something
happens. It's called the method of loci in psychology.

"When you don't change location, you are just always in the same
spot," Blackman said. "It's kind of hard to remember whether something
happened on a Tuesday or Wednesday."

Evidence suggests that human brains have evolved to being used to having
people around. The loss of proximity to others on a regular basis is likely causing
us to also be in a constant stage of "hyper-vigilance," said Julianne Holt-Lunstad,
a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Brigham Young University.

"That heightened alertness has biological manifestations," Holt-Lunstad said. "It

can lead to increases in heart rate, blood pressure and increased inflammation;
if these are not mitigated and remain chronic that can lead to chronic health
conditions or exacerbation of existing health conditions."

So, what are we to do to make sure we don't stay like this longer than we have
to?

Haney said what he's heard from people during the pandemic— feeling more
anxious, more depressed, people struggling with their sense of self, feeling
socially awkward— is all similar to what he's heard prisoners report in his
research. And that's why he expects much of this so-called awkwardness and
anxiety to remain for some time as we re-emerge into society. But he also fears
for some people, it might never go away.
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"This will cause some degree of anxiety for people, and I'm talking about the
patterns I've seen in formerly incarcerated persons — they end up self-isolating
because they don't feel comfortable around other people because they've been
isolated so much," Haney said. "When they have the opportunity to be around
people they don't take it. They feel awkward, pull back and keep to themselves."

Mental health professionals, Haney said, should be "prepared" for that after the
pandemic.

"They should encourage people who are feeling that kind of paralyzing social
anxiety to seek treatment and seek counseling," Haney said.

Blackman agreed it's certainly a concern, and that it won't be a "flip the switch"
situation when the pandemic ends, but she hopes that it doesn't happen.

"One of the unfortunate things in social psychology, or about human behavior

more generally, is that the best predictor of tomorrow's behavior is today's,"
Blackman said.

Holt-Lunstad said that intentional acts of kindness and safe volunteering could
be an antidote to loneliness and the anxiety we will face as the world comes
back together.

"There's evidence to suggest that those who are chronically lonely may have a
cognitive bias — and negative cognitive biases can make it difficult to engage
and initiate those kinds of social engagements, [meaning] it may be difficult to
kind of make the first move, socially, so to speak," Holt-Lunstad said. "By doing
something to help someone else, that can kind of potentially take some of that
hesitancy away, because it puts the person in a less vulnerable position because
they're focused on helping someone else."

Source:
https://www.salon.com/2021/02/04/is-the-pandemic-making-our-social-skills-decay-
psychologists-think-so/