The Impact of Coronavirus Lockdowns on Adolescents

Abstract

This article examines the social, medical, and futuristic impacts of coronavirus lockdowns on adolescents. The effects of social isolation and school closures are the focus. The literature reveals that adolescents’ mental health declined due to social isolation during COVID, and that their social development was stunted. The brain development of adolescents could also have been negatively affected due to a lack of engagement in social decision making processes. The article examines the inequality exacerbated by the pandemic, namely the increased inequality by race and income in adolescents’ access to sports and the economic inequality in learning losses. Not only were learning losses during remote learning more prevalent among low-income adolescents, but these students are likely to experience a decrease in expected income over the course of their lifetimes. Based on existing research, an effective remedy to the negative impacts of COVID lockdowns on adolescents would be to increase funding to schools in order to decrease COVID cases among adolescents, provide individualized instruction to students who fell behind during remote learning, and to improve in-school counseling services.