Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, University College London, London, UK.
Sci Rep. 2022 Nov 9;12(1):19088. doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-23899-y.
The COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing social restrictions disrupted young people's social interactions and resulted in several periods during which school closures necessitated online learning. We hypothesised that digitally excluded young people would demonstrate greater deterioration in their mental health than their digitally connected peers during this time. We analysed representative mental health data from a sample of UK 10-15-year-olds (N = 1387) who completed a mental health inventory in 2017-2019 and thrice during the pandemic (July 2020, November 2020 and March 2021). We employed longitudinal modelling to describe trajectories of adolescent mental health for participants with and without access to a computer or a good internet connection for schoolwork. Adolescent mental health symptoms rose early in the COVID-19 pandemic, with the highest mean Total Difficulties score around December 2020. The worsening and subsequent recovery of mental health during the pandemic was greatly pronounced among those without access to a computer, although we did not find evidence for a similar effect among those without a good internet connection. We conclude that lack of access to a computer is a tractable risk factor that likely compounds other adversities facing children and young people during periods of social isolation or educational disruption.
新冠疫情和随后的社会限制打乱了年轻人的社交互动，导致了几个时期，学校关闭需要在线学习。我们假设，在这段时间里，与数字连接的同龄人相比，被数字排斥的年轻人的心理健康会出现更大的恶化。我们分析了来自英国一组 10-15 岁青少年（N=1387）的代表性心理健康数据，这些青少年在 2017-2019 年期间和疫情期间（2020 年 7 月、2020 年 11 月和 2021 年 3 月）三次完成了心理健康调查。我们采用纵向模型来描述有和没有电脑或良好网络连接进行学业的参与者的青少年心理健康轨迹。青少年心理健康症状在新冠疫情早期就开始上升，2020 年 12 月左右总困难得分最高。在没有电脑的情况下，心理健康在疫情期间的恶化和随后的恢复情况更为明显，尽管我们没有发现没有良好网络连接的人存在类似影响的证据。我们的结论是，缺乏使用电脑的机会是一个可处理的风险因素，可能会加剧儿童和年轻人在社交隔离或教育中断期间面临的其他困境。
