Life without any communication would be unexplainably different from the life that people are used to. Communication is used in our lives every single day, whether it’s texting, calling, or just talking in face to face conversations. It’s something that humans will probably and hopefully never lose permanently.
In 2020, when the Coronavirus started to spread across the world, it was something that nobody was aware of. People were not alarmed or worried about it until it started to come to their homes, in towns and cities across the world. Schools and businesses started shutting down, and factories were lacking in product and supplies. It started as a two week break for Warren County Public Schools, but ended up pushing people away from communicating with each other, and seeing family and friends for almost a year.
Lots of people were affected in many different ways by staying home for this long amount of time. Plenty of communication was lost with friends and family from not being able to see them everyday. This made lots of people very frustrated that they were stuck in their homes, and not able to go out and do anything. For a teenager, it may be very difficult to not see best friends, and people that you loved being around everyday. This made me very curious about what other people were feeling, and what they were dealing with during this time.
Chloe Kim, a Freshman at Greenwood High School, had time to think about how being at home has affected her social skills and herself. “It made me not as social as I used to be, and made me less talkative,” She responded. Being away from family and friends can be tough on a teenager too. Chloe said, “I felt very bored. I was doing the same things every single day.” She also said that her schedule got very repetitive and ongoing from doing school online every day.
Aidan O’Hara, a Sophomore at Greenwood High School, felt very lonely and bored being away from his friends at school. Aidan had his own experience with loss of communication during COVID-19. “I couldn’t talk to them as much because I didn’t get to have conversations with them face to face,” he said. Virtual learning led to him not seeing his friends. Staying home for a long amount of time did not affect Aidan in any certain way,“But it did make me appreciate the thought of going back to school in person again,” Aidan said.
The Coronavirus lockdown ordering everyone to stay home caused many mental health problems, and depressive behaviors in college students as well. A survey in April 2020 conducted by Active Minds (A mental health organization), showed that 57% of all students say that their mental health had worsened from doing online classes, instead of being in person.
The Coronavirus affected everybody in different and negative ways. There was lot’s of social distancing, and staying away from the public. A year later, lots of things have changed like mask mandates and social distancing rules. Lots of places have opened back up and lots of restrictions have been lifted, but the virus is still alive and spreading.