The Regression of Teenage Development Amidst a Pandemic and the Digital Age

Growing up and transitioning from childhood into adulthood is something that most individuals experience. In that time period, adolescents progressively begin to understand the world and themselves. They explore who they are, chase opportunities, and develop both mentally and physically. While the state of society affects the growth of teenagers over many different generations, teenagers today have been especially impacted by recent events. Over the past six years, the world has encountered turmoil and hardships that have greatly altered the development of teenagers around the world. The past is much different to what today looks like and adolescents seem to have realized that those six years may have done irreversible damage; possibly changing youth development for good.

Current teenagers have felt the effects of social media and artificial intelligence as some of the large events of their youth. In particular, the COVID pandemic and social isolation have been some of the most concerning issues surrounding their development and growth. Self expression and maturity have also been hard to manage and many individuals are finding self exploration and the transition into adulthood especially difficult. Matthew Fulford, a social studies teacher at East worries about the students he’s teaching. “I’ve noticed that attention span and the ability to focus is a lot more limited. Being able to engage in longer readings or longer sessions of writing and just the ability to focus for long periods of time. It’s hard to tell whether or not that’s COVID directly because the growth of cell phone use at that time is also kind of impacting attention.”

Despite the fact that TikTok was the most used social media app during COVID (Statista), social media and technology usage increased tremendously directly after the pandemic. The Pew Research Center reported that “Overall, nearly all teens – 96% – report using the internet daily” during the latter half of 2024. Especially today, the use of artificial intelligence has skyrocketed. While AI is useful for searching up questions to ask when making conversation or giving a little nudge with homework, it removes the essential parts of developing the skills that AI is taking away. Education is what promotes learning for people of all ages. However, when a quick search on the internet provides concise answers to something that is too hard to study, there’s nothing to learn at all. Artificial intelligence and social media aren’t the only things to blame though.

From 2020 until 2026, growing adolescents have experienced unbelievable amounts of isolation. The COVID pandemic closed off opportunities for in-person interactions and directly after it ended, social media continued to affect them as well. The National Library of Medicine reported through multiple studies that there was a “...high prevalence of depression, anxiety, psychological distress, helplessness, inattention, and irritability in a group of people under 18 years of age” after COVID. Considering the amount of time teenagers spent in quarantine and now on social media, it’s no wonder we’re struggling with being social. “682 families in the United States from five Midwestern states with two adolescent-aged children reported engaging in fewer in-person/face-to-face interactions with peers and more online interactions.” (National Institute of Health)

A large portion of youth today have faced developmental challenges that have severely impacted their social skills, identity formation, and the period of time where those individuals grow up. The transition from middle school into high school is awkward, but a crucial time for the youth to start maturing into adulthood. But the issue with teenagers today lies within the fact that many didn’t get to experience that ‘cringy’ or bumpy transition. A vast majority of adolescents were thrown into the pandemic with no face to face interactions for months, leaving a devastating impact on the social skills of countless high school students. Like many, Chloe Mosher feels that pressure to interact with people despite the fact that those interactions leave little to no room for pleasant conversation. “I’d say COVID is the main factor. I got out of contact with all of my friends during that beginning year and struggled to rebuild those friendships afterwards. It took me a while to feel mostly comfortable in social situations again.” As a senior, she’s concerned about external factors that affect adolescent development both for her generation, and the future ones. “I feel like we’re always told that we are the ones who are going to have to fix giant issues like climate change, gun violence, wealth inequality, etc…I think that future generations are definitely going to have higher rates of mental health issues because of social media. It also concerns me that AI is becoming so popular, since I feel like it’s messing with kids’ abilities to think for themselves and develop their own opinions.”

Along with the mass screenager epidemic, the transition into adulthood and the underdevelopment of social skills is leaving a devastating impact on teenagers around the world. What used to be a colorful childhood is now a technology-filled, lonely, chaotic mess of society. It’s not uncommon to see eerily quiet neighborhoods. No kids running around and no teenagers hanging out together. There’s nothing. The past six years hasn’t been an easy journey for anyone, but young adults today are facing a national crisis of collective hell. If nothing is done to help the growth and development of teenagers, future generations may never be able to recover.