Following over a year of social isolation, people have a unique opportunity to socialize better
8/26/21 by Doris Turkel
On one of my first Friday nights back in New York City for the summer, I sat with a group of high school friends under a tree in Washington Square Park and surveyed a quintessential scene of city youth. Washington Square Park became a center of operations last spring, constantly packed with teenagers dancing, skating, performing with their bands and selling their art. It was so exciting to finally be surrounded by crowds of teenagers — the park was vibrating with energy. As we watched from afar, our anticipation mingled with a newfound social anxiety. We weren’t as anxious about the millions of bacteria spreading in the air as the idea of standing up and integrating into the crowd, talking to other teenagers and dancing for the first time in over a year. My usually outgoing friends joked about this, saying “I have literally lost all social skills,” and “I need a minute to prepare before standing up.”
I have attributed my and my friends’ shift in social behavior this summer to growing older and establishing higher standards for friendship, but it is clear that our sudden year in isolation is directly correlated. In the end, we enjoyed our night in the park and quickly were able to mingle and meet, but the tensions leading up to our socialization were a part of a pattern I have noticed in many peers I have talked to this summer. When discussing this dilemma with one of my best friends on a recent walk, he explained that when in a college environment directly after quarantine, even eye contact made him nervous.
I have always been extremely social and outgoing — my friends make fun of me for befriending strangers frequently and I feel most comfortable in large crowds. However, this summer, I have noticed an increased tendency to socialize and make plans solely with my closest and oldest groups of friends. Additionally, aside from a few events, I have found larger scale socialization to be straining. I have heard time and time again that adolescent years are formative emotionally and socially, but for the first time, I am realizing the gravity of the fact.
However, I do not think that the social shift is entirely bad.
It has been shown that social acceptance in adolescents, namely high school and college students, has a comparable effect on the brain to getting money or eating dessert, which is why young people often mutate and adapt their behavior, values, identities, etc. in conformity with their friends. Our personalities and behaviors are heavily influenced by our peers, so it is inevitable that we would change when separated from them. In social isolation, young people were forced to detach from friends, at least to some extent, and life became more self-centered: we chose what to do, what to eat, how to spend our days, et cetera. This independence relieved some of our constant, subconscious craving for social acceptance because our actions were no longer directly influenced by our peers and we were given space to gravitate toward behaviors and actions that were more genuine to us. However, this also pushed young people to look for social acceptance elsewhere.
One negative effect of isolation was an increase in social media use, causing young people to crave social acceptance in a more dangerous way. Social media allows for layers of anonymity and editing that allow people to present facades, which is unhealthy and provides unrealistic standards for one to compare oneself to. A depersonalization of friendships resulting from the increased use of social media in quarantine has also led many people to experience feelings of “forced empathy,” in which a lack of physical closeness has led to a reduced sensitivity toward others. The loss of human empathy is extremely concerning, as it can have dire effects on everything from policy to personal relationships.
On the bright side, isolation did allow time for self-reflection and growth outside of the confines of our peer networks. I have asked many friends this summer about what they have realized about themselves or how they have changed over the past year, even sharing my own development. The mental health of many definitely declined during COVID-19, but I have found that adolescents also were able to learn more about themselves, changing their social behavior to match their wants in a way that may have never occurred without quarantine.
What young people have been left to handle after quarantine is a strange and contradicting social dilemma: the excitement of finally being able to be in social settings, the anxiety resulting from a year of isolation and a year’s worth of self reflection. What now?
The same friend who disclosed to me that eye contact makes him nervous explained that his goal for this year in college is to improve his social skills and become a more outgoing person by actively trying to engage in conversation with people he finds interesting. I do not think that the effect quarantine had on youth socialization is irreparable — young people are naturally social and will have to readapt to social settings, either by their own will or by forced environmental circumstances. But in our reintegration to social life, it can be extremely beneficial to consider what effect being alone had on our behavior and how we can socialize smartly, in a way that is enriching to us as individuals.
I am grateful for how quarantine has shifted my social ideals in many ways. While I once romanticized being in large social situations, I now know that having smaller group or individual conversations with close and interesting friends is infinitely more fulfilling for me. While I enjoyed the few parties and large gatherings I attended this summer, I navigate those situations differently now, focusing more on creating new relationships and appreciating certain aspects of the atmosphere rather than allowing myself to be absorbed or craving social attention.
I am not alone in shrinking my social circle. In fact, there has been a pattern worldwide — a survey of nearly 2,000 Australians showed a significant amount of people cutting down their friend groups after quarantine as well. This trend was most likely amplified in the United States because of the intensity of our pandemic situation throughout most of last year. This may be partially due to a decrease in social bandwidth that has forced us to pick and choose our closest and most comfortable friends to hang out with, but it also reflects a year of self discovery for many. Unfortunately, this social trend may be hindering our chances of meeting new people and forming relationships with them, as people seem to be less willing to engage and foster a friendship through that buffer period before a close friendship is formed. On a positive note, self-reflection and independence in isolation have given young people insight into what they value in social interaction, which can hopefully be used to curate friend groups wisely and spend time with people who are fulfilling friends.
Most of us have spent the past year and a half feeling like a cursed generation for having one of our prime years socially shut down by COVID-19. The pandemic was awful and devastating, but the social isolation it provided was an experience unique only to our generation of adolescents, and one that may benefit us in the future. As many of us begin to reintegrate into in-person school and work settings, hopefully we can use our year of independence to navigate social settings in a more genuine way and to adjust our social situations, friend groups and social behaviors more efficiently.
Doris Turkel is an undeclared sophomore.
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