If there’s one lesson from the coronavirus, it’s that maybe we need each other more than we thought.
Yesterday, I drove past a school, its parking lot nearly empty due to school cancellations. However, I noticed a couple cars and a handful of teenagers playing a game of pickup basketball.
Interesting, I thought, since these kids certainly weren’t required to be in school and could probably be enjoying video games or streaming Netflix at home. Instead, they were with each other, outside, getting fresh air and exercise — their piece of serenity in the middle of the global pandemic of COVID-19, caused by the novel coronavirus.
The United States isn’t as connected as it used to be, and we seemed OK with that, for a while. Who needs dinner or brunch with real people when Netflix is our entertainment? When Facebook is our friends, Tinder is our lover, and Snapchat is our communication?
Millennials and Generation Z use smartphones and social media more than any other generation. The average millennial spends more than 200 minutes a day on a screen.
It’s not exactly shocking that depression and anxiety have spiked among young people. Some researchers say excessive screen time is to blame, although others say it’s not so simple.
This 2017 Atlantic feature asked if smartphones were destroying an entire generation: “Teens today differ from the Millennials not just in their views but in how they spend their time,” the author, a professor of psychology observed. She wrote:
Sociologists have been trying to figure out why, with all this internet connectivity — from Facebook, to Twitter, to Instagram, to Snapchat, and now even to TikTok — surveys still show we feel lonelier than ever. The answer isn’t all that profound, it’s just hard actually to implement.
It’s kind of like losing weight: The concept of creating a calorie deficit isn’t rocket science, but it is still quite hard to do. Likewise, less screen time and more people time intuitively makes sense, yet still seems hard to implement. A screen is addictive without being demanding. Time with people in real life can often feel demanding and pressure-inducing, without actually even being stimulating, let alone addicting.
That is, until, the coronavirus began spreading throughout the United States.
The nation’s various politicians and business leaders have been methodically shutting down events, restaurants, and businesses, from churches and restaurants to conferences and parades. You’d think this would be a millennial’s dream, a Gen Zer’s nirvana: “Netflix and chill” for weeks on end.
Yet somehow, mandated self-isolation, or “social distancing,” has had the reverse effect.
Instantly, hordes of young people across the country have tried to buck the trend. Bars and restaurants in New York City were inundated, largely with young people, before the state mandated they close. St. Patrick Day’s celebrants continued to try and enjoy some festivities in Chicago, even as city officials pleaded with them not to. One beach in Florida was packed over the weekend.
You could say this is just an example of a nation resisting an authoritarian bend, or good, old-fashioned reverse psychology: As soon as you tell someone to do something, he wants to do the opposite. But I think it’s more.
In an age when everyone has entertainment, people, and news at their fingertips, they’ve gotten lazy and taken human interaction for granted. And now, when it’s really being removed, something this generation has never experienced, suddenly they want it back.
Maybe when this is over, and we have grieved our losses and realized where we were vulnerable, we will also realize we needed each other more than we thought, and finally appreciate each other as much as we should.
Nicole Russell (@russell_nm) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. She is a journalist who previously worked in Republican politics in Minnesota.
