Did the COVID Lockdowns Truly Affect us? It Fixed Problems, but What Did It Cause?

The world as we knew it stopped, it shut down. The phrase “The world won’t stop for you”, stopped being true. This wasn’t just a shut down, this was a time where grief was felt world-wide, and we had to adapt to a whole new way of living. The pandemic brought lockdowns, school closures, and an extreme shift to how we live. While yes, this was needed for public health, it also created many problems that this generation may not have been prepared for. Have you felt a change in your social ability? How you learn, or even the healthcare system? In this post, we will explore the different problems that the lockdowns could have implicated in our generation, and how we it has changed us.

A World-Wide Setback

Across the world, schools shut down. It started off as 2 weeks and it slowly turned into months some turned to a year. According to UNICEF, over 168 million children were out of school for nearly a year. Within 11 countries, students missed about 3 quarters or more of their in-person education between March 2020 and September of 2021. This was needed for health concerns, but what were the other results? Some studies showed that there was a loss of months in reading comprehension and math studies for many students. Also showing that younger students and those for lower-income communities were highly affected, some losing almost 8 months of learning.  

These problems may seem small, but it meant that even as schools opened back up, many people felt that they were already behind in their learning. This not only could’ve affected grades, but the people’s confidence, motivation and mental health.

How Did It Affect Our Growing Minds?

Taking in the learning setbacks and social problems, all of this had an impact on the mental health of children, teenagers and pre-teens. The long-term isolation, the disruption of daily routine and the “unknown” of what the news would say next, led to a rise in anxiety and depression among kids and teens. The World Health Organization put out a study that shows the rates of anxiety and depression increasing by 25% during the 2020 pandemic. This shows how the mental state of children and teens were impacted. There was also a loss of access to help, leaving it to strictly online availability. There was a huge loss in connection, and it left many struggling with their mental state. This caused some people to experience long-term phycological effects even after restrictions where lifted.

 Social Problems

It wasn’t just the classrooms that were empty, but also playgrounds, clubs, parties, sports and all social gatherings. The development of children is partially dependent on social integration, making friends, especially in early ages. A survey showed that 7 in 10 parents felt hat the lockdowns had a negative impact on their kids social development and social abilities. We are social beings by nature, and the simply being alone for long periods of time, especially as a growing child, has shown to cause problems in different social skills. Communication skills, social anxiety, and even learning to regulate our own emotions. Furthermore, s comparison study showed that children in the ages of 1-10 were impacted in their attention spans and even sleeping problems. Many of these problems continued to affect children into the year and 2021.

 Did These New Problems Come with new Solutions?

During these times, it had become a random time of withdrawing kids from the regular schooling and day-to-day life. The upcoming generation faced problems then and continue to face problems now. It has created many changes to our livelihood and to how we look at the world as we grow up. While the world is continuing to recover, there will always be risks, in health and in personal circumstances.

This pause in the world is a remembrance of loss, and a time of grief. But also, a time where we put our faith into humanity, and where many of us came together to try and be safe, not just for each other but for our loved ones, for strangers, and for those who are no longer with us because of COVID. There was a sense that even though we were struggling, we were struggling together.

Are We Dropping Our Literacy?

Does one look at a social media comment section have you wondering if we’re becoming illiterate? You’re not alone. In a world full of fake news, rage bait, and endless adverts, it’s easy to feel like you’re the only one thinking. But the truth is, it’s not that bad. Yet.

Before we get into that, let’s talk about what “literacy” actually means.

Literacy?

Image by tiday on pIXABAY

When we think “literacy”, we think reading and writing. It does mean that, but being workably literate includes having number and critical thinking skills too. That’s because people need all these basic skills to live well. Without them, they will struggle with important life things like managing money, making decisions and getting jobs.

There are different levels of literacy too. It’s not just literate or illiterate. Literacy has 5 levels, with 1 being lowest and 5 the highest. At level 1, a person can read basic sentences, add and subtract small numbers and follow simple directions. Level 3 is enough literacy to pass high school. At level 3, a person can read and understand normal books, solve number problems and find useful answers in textbooks. Level 3 is considered workably literate.

Currently only 37% of Canadians are at level 3 and 14% are at level 4 or 5. That means 49% are not fully literate. Oof.

Why Are Canadian’s Illiterate?

Well, we aren’t. We’re actually above the global average in all the types of literacy we just discussed. Low literacy is just a global problem and one that isn’t getting better. Literacy rates are either dropping or staying the same, which feels odd in a time of “information overload”.

Shouldn’t we be improving? It’s never been easier to learn. We’re reading and writing all day, every day. Well, that might be the problem. Having so much access is kind of bad for us. Let’s explore why.

Culprit 1: Technology

Spell-checker is world changing invention. We all used to own fat dictionaries so we could check our spelling. Now most websites give us a wiggly red line. One click and it’s fixed! Our phones don’t even tell us we got it wrong, autocorrect just changes it for us. This a great time saver, but it robs us of the chance to learn. Taking the time to correct ourselves makes us less likely to make the same mistake again.

AI creates a whole new problem. With spell-checkers, we still had to write something ourselves. Now we can send a little prompt to ChatGPT and it’ll plan or write an essay for us. Some sites even have sparkly buttons that will “enhance” your writing with AI instantly, but it doesn’t teach us how to do what the AI did. It just makes us dependent.

Culprit 2: Fast Facts

Reading books isn’t popular. In 2023, 51% of American adults hadn’t read a whole book for a year. Instead, information has moved to faster, easier to digest forms. TV shows, short-form content and video documentaries have replaced books. Why spend hours reading when you can watch 30-minute video instead? Why read a recipe when you can watch a TikTok tutorial? It’s more efficient.

This is hard to compete with. However, visual teaching doesn’t improve or maintain our literacy skills. It’s a way around the problem. We end up relying on information being told to us. It’s why workplaces favour using information videos instead of training manuals.

Culprit 3: Know It All

Calling back to information overload, let’s not overlook how much information we have access to. Thousands of videos, blogs, articles and posts go up every day. Just like this one! All of them are saying something, and many are contradictory. How do we know which ones are true? We don’t have time to fact-check everything!

This makes us passive learners. We take things in without thinking about it. This lowers our ability to think critically and can fill our brain with things we don’t need. Over time, this results in a loss of in ability thinking for ourselves.

Are We Doomed?

No, but as you can see, literacy is weakened by convenience. If we rely on easier options for information, we aren’t using our literacy skills. Not using them means we are losing them. However, keeping our skills is a choice. We don’t have to lose them. Instead, we can take control and promote literacy for ourselves and for others.

---

Hannah Staniforth is a second-year Professional Writing student at Algonquin College in Ottawa, Ontario. She combines her previous experiences in Social Sciences with her writing to explore social themes with her readers. Hannah’s recent works emphasize the importance of positive thinking, gentle self-development, and reclaiming your personal time in a demanding world.