Researchers from Cambridge have drawn attention to the correlation between youth and adolescent mental health during COVID-19 lockdowns and access to computers.
The research team discovered that the end of 2020 was the time when young people experienced the most challenges and that those young people without access to a computer were likely to experience worsening mental health than their classmates who did.
Young people’s mental health was significantly impacted by the COVID-19 epidemic, as seen by growing levels of anxiety, depression, and psychological discomfort. People are especially prone to acquiring mental health illnesses during adolescence, which can have long-lasting effects into adulthood.
In the UK, children and adolescents’ mental health was already declining before to the pandemic, but the percentage of those in this age range who were likely to be dealing with a mental health condition rose from 11% in 2017 to 16% in July 2020.
The effects of the pandemic, which caused school closures and a rise in online learning, were not felt uniformly. Teenagers without access to computers had the most disruption: in one survey, 30% of school students from middle-class homes reported participating in live or recorded school lessons every day, compared to only 16% of students from working-class homes.
In addition to school closures, lockdowns often meant that young people could not meet their friends in person. Online and digital peer engagement during these times, like that found in video games and social media, is probably what helped lessen the effects of these social upheavals.
Tom Metherell, who at the time of the study was an undergraduate student at Fitzwilliam College, University of Cambridge, said: “Access to computers meant that many young people were still able to ‘attend’ school virtually, carry on with their education to an extent and keep up with friends. But anyone who didn’t have access to a computer would have been at a significant disadvantage, which would only risk increasing their sense of isolation.”
Metherell and colleagues looked at data from 1,387 10-15-year-olds obtained as part of Understanding Society, a significant UK-wide longitudinal study, to evaluate in depth the effect of digital isolation on young people’s mental health. Since education can primarily only be done on a computer and the majority of social interactions at this age take place in person at school, they concentrated on access to computers rather than smartphones.
Young people’s mental health tended to suffer most during the strictest periods of lockdown when they were less likely to be able go to school or see friends. But those without access to a computer were the worst hit their mental health suffered much more than their peers and the change was more dramatic.
Tom Metherell
The results of their study are published in Scientific Reports.
Participants completed a questionnaire that assessed common childhood psychological difficulties, which allowed the Understanding Society team to score them on five areas: hyperactivity/inattention, prosocial behavior, emotional, conduct, and peer relationship problems. From this, they derived a ‘Total Difficulties’ score for each individual.
Over the course of the pandemic, the researchers noted small changes in the overall mental health of the group, with average Total Difficulties scores increasing form pre-pandemic levels of 10.7 (out of a maximum 40), peaking at 11.4 at the end of 2020 before declining to 11.1 by March 2021.
Those young people who had no access to a computer saw the largest increase in their Total Difficulties scores. While both groups of young people had similar scores at the start of the pandemic, when modeled with adjustment for sociodemographic factors, those without computer access saw their average scores increase to 17.8, compared to their peers, whose scores increased to 11.2.
Almost one in four (24%) young people in the group without computer access had Total Difficulties scores classed as ‘high’ or ‘very high’ compared to one in seven (14%) in the group with computer access.
Metherell, now a Ph.D. student at UCL, added: “Young people’s mental health tended to suffer most during the strictest periods of lockdown when they were less likely to be able go to school or see friends. But those without access to a computer were the worst hit their mental health suffered much more than their peers and the change was more dramatic.”
Dr. Amy Orben from the Medical Research Council (MRC) Cognition and Brain Sciences at the University of Cambridge, the study’s senior author, added: “Rather than always focusing on the downsides of digital technology on young people’s mental health, we need to recognize that it can have important benefits and may act as a buffer for their mental health during times of acute social isolation, such as the lockdown.”
“We don’t know if and when a future lockdown will occur, but our research shows that we need to start thinking urgently how we can tackle digital inequalities and help protect the mental health of our young people in times when their regular in-person social networks are disrupted.”
The researchers contend that in order to ensure equal digital access, politicians and public health professionals must prioritize acknowledging the hazards of ‘digital exclusion’ to young people’s mental health.
Tom Metherell was supported by was supported by the British Psychological Society Undergraduate Research Assistantship Scheme. The research was largely funded by the Medical Research Council.
