In this blog, I want to discuss social anxiety and its relation to COVID-19. Many people have experienced this because of the pandemic. It has changed many peoples lives. I want to talk about it because we have learned about social anxiety in class, and I feel that COVID-19 is a very relevant topic to incorporate. I also can relate to this immensely.
To start off, I am going to explain what social anxiety is. According to the textbook, social anxiety is a “marked fear or anxiety about one or more social situations in which the individual is exposed to possible scrutiny by others”. Furthermore, according to Leary and Kowalski (1995), a person becomes more likely to experience a fearful response in social circumstances when two conditions are present: high self- presentational motivation and low self-efficacy(Gruman, 2016). Social anxiety is very common in teens. However, I had never experienced social anxiety before. I considered myself a very social person who could talk to anyone. I always had a great group of friends who I felt so comfortable hanging out with and I loved spending time with. I spent more of my time at their house than I did at my own. Once COVID-19 hit, things had changed.
During this pandemic, we were forced to stay in our homes. This meant we could not hang with friends, go to events, restaurants, and even had to leave college. I began to have a schedule that occurred everyday of waking up, eating breakfast, doing online classes, walking outside with my family and dogs, eating dinner, watching a movie with my family and then going to sleep. This was an everyday thing and became a pattern. I got so used this schedule and forgot what it was like in the real world. I became such a homebody and even if I got the chance to leave my house I did not want to. Additionally, COVID-19 was killing so many people that I was also terrified to leave my house and get my family sick. Research has also showed that levels of depression and anxiety were higher at this time.
Once things started to become normal again and people were allowed to leave their houses, I still was hesitant too and was uncomfortable hanging with others. I preferred staying at home with my family rather than being with my friends. This was occurring because I experienced a reduction in social exposure. It was very difficult for me to transition back to school after this. I was not excited to go like I normally was. I felt like I did not know how to act when with other people. I knew that the only way to cope with this was through exposure therapy. This meant that I had to put myself back into social settings. It was a difficult at first to be back at the school life and I definitely had a lot of social anxiety moments where I did not want to go out like my friends did. However, I got back into my normal schedule and became more comfortable around others with more exposure.
What I was experiencing was completely normal and was effecting many other people as well. I wanted to share my story to show that social anxiety can come at any time and can happen to anyone. I am happy that I was able to overcome this however, it is a lot more diffcult for others to do.
Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., & Coutts, L. (2016). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and addressing social and practical problems. SAGE.
Hello! I enjoyed reading your blog post and I feel that it is very relevant to both this weeks lesson and our everyday lives. The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted out mental health tremendously. As you stated, isolation from the world is one contributing factor to the development of anxiety during the pandemic. Another contributing factor to the development of anxiety during the pandemic is the unprecedented level of uncertainty that is associated with the pandemic (Rettie & Daniels, 2021 as cited in White, 2022).
The need for cognitive closure is one risk factor to an individual developing anxiety (Berenbaum et al., 2008 as cited in White, 2022).
References
White, H. A. (2022). Need for cognitive closure predicts stress and anxiety of college students during COVID-19 pandemic. Personality and Individual Differences, 187, 4. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2021.111393
Your blog was an interesting read. A lot of people including myself have been making note of the effects of COVID on the mind. I can definitely see the correlation between COVID and social anxiety. I have known a lot of people afraid to go out around people. I also have known people scared to touch things out in public. I don’t think their fear is necessarily irrational or invalid either. The Pandemic has brought out a side of society that our generation is unfamiliar with on this scale.
As humans we want and need some level of human contact. As you said, during the Pandemic a lot of us were forced to stay inside all day and night for weeks on end. We adapted to that new way of life. After several months people started to notice the effects, this has on the body and brain. For some people it may have been a few days or weeks for them to notice. We were not created to hibernate, and the Pandemic has caused many to do just that.
My entry mirrors yours in many ways. Over the past two years I have seen an increase in those suffering mental health issues and well as experienced some myself. Never would I have been concerned about being in a group of people but in 2020 I felt like that was a problem. Over time I think everyone will adjust back to “normal” but with the increase in self harm it’s very important to be aware that help can be attained.
https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/the-implications-of-covid-19-for-mental-health-and-substance-use/
the pandemic and lockdown definitely set the stage for increased rates of social anxiety in everyone when returning back to society. After covid, it is more difficult for people not to experience anxiety when in a social setting because of what we learned about the virus. Now in society when one goes out it is common practice to wear a mask, and although everyone should continue to wear their masks this new level of anonymity is added to society. People used to look at someone’s face and determine if they want to interact with them or not, but not one is not able to make this decision because of masks and due to social distancing. Furthermore, when someone nowadays coughs in public or during a lecture, judgmental looks and those inching away become apparent and add to the difficulty of overcoming social anxiety. Research by Juvonen, Lessard, Kline, and Graham (2022) found that, “a greater number of friends over time and greater satisfaction with friend electronic communication during the pandemic were most robustly related to lower social and generalized anxiety as well as depressive symptoms” (pg.1). This is fine, but a new struggle following the pandemic is the ability to make friends because of social distancing, mask regulations, and overall increased distrust in people nowadays.
Juvonen, J., Lessard, L. M., Kline, N. G., & Graham, S. (2022). Young adult adaptability to the social challenges of the covid-19 pandemic: The protective role of friendships. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10964-022-01573-w