Chalk up another unintended social and personal consequence of COVID-19: My son has learned to power nap.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Any number of Einsteins, including Albert himself, has made a case for snatching snippets of sleep. There is a mythology of creative thinkers who are said to have devised ways to wake themselves just as they drifted off. Legend has it that Salvador Dali would nap in a chair, a piece of silverware in his hand. Just as Hypnos was getting his hooks into him, his hand would relax, the fork would fall to the floor, and the clatter would wake him. Winston Churchill was also a confirmed napper, and frankly, given the amount of whiskey, brandy, and champagne the great man put away every day, it’s a miracle his eyes were ever open.
Sleepy as high school students may be, the typical campus is not devised to encourage drowsing. Those desk-and-chair outfits are punishing. They offer no room to cross one’s legs, let alone recline. They are severe enough to keep parents awake at the annual back-to-school night, at least back when there were such things as in-person back-to-school nights.
Inhibiting teenage somnolence may be the very reason school buildings are designed to be snooze-proof. Yes, there’s the library, but in the age of digital books, no one seems to go there much. Actually, no one’s going to the library at all because no one’s at school. My son’s classes are still fully in virtual mode.
Doing all one’s schoolwork at home proves to be slumberous, and not just because at home, even if one abjures the bedroom, there’s always a comfy chair or soporific sofa handy. When classes are held at school, there’s barely enough time to get from one classroom to another before the bell sounds. The students have to hop up and hurry through the halls to make it to their next class. With virtual learning, students may wander to the kitchen for a snack between chemistry and English, but there’s no regular rush and bustle to keep them awake.
When lunch rolls around on campus, it’s a time for lively, engaging conversation with friends. Not only is there no place to indulge in indolence, but no student wants to miss the daily party. At home, my son has already blunted his appetite by lunch with granola bars. He’s hardly the only one among his friends who has substituted a brief midday slumber for sandwiches.
Contributing to the need to nap is the habit of staying up all hours of the night. My son is diligent about getting his homework done and getting ahead of deadlines for various projects. By the time he’s finished with assigned reading and the self-directed study of classic rock guitar riffs, it’s usually about 11 p.m. That’s when he gets together with his friends — virtually, of course.
At school, children see their friends every day throughout the day. We take for granted how social school is, or we concentrate on the negative aspects of teenage sociability, such as cliques and unkindness and the like. The pandemic is a reminder that adolescence is when we learn to be friends, when we develop a robust need for friendship. Isolated as they are, spending all day at home, teenagers in the time of the coronavirus still have their phones to turn to as a means of connecting. But for my son, one of the best ways he has to stay in touch with his buddies is to join them for late-night video games. With their microphone headsets on, they yell at each other (well, I assume they yell at each other — I only hear my son’s part of the ruckus) as they blow things up, play (apolitical) basketball, or race Lambos through the Stelvio Pass.
They may stay up too late doing it, but I’m not of a mind to tell them to quit. They may be tired in the morning. But there will always be time for a nap later.
Eric Felten is the James Beard Award-winning author of How’s Your Drink?
